Customer is the blood-line of any industry. Customer Satisfaction involves the extent or the degree to which, a company’s services meet the requirements of its customer. It is mandatory for ISO certified companies to measure their customer satisfaction, and to continually improve this satisfaction index. There is little doubt that customer satisfaction is a central part of any effective Quality Management System.

In intense consumer-focused activities like server administration or monitoring services, measuring customer satisfaction is very critical. However, every company in every industry can benefit by evaluating their customer needs. Evaluating customer satisfaction provides the following benefits to an organization:

• Determining the customer needs in a better manner.
• Identify the problems related to the customer services.
• Focus more on the areas that require improvement.
• Get more insight regarding the new service offerings required by customers.

There are three main areas of customer interaction in ISO 9001:2000 – Assessing customer needs Customer satisfaction survey Customer complaint handling. By analyzing the customer satisfaction and their needs, we can improvise our systems to increase revenues.

The following aspects are taken into consideration by Bobcares to implement an effective complaint handling system.

1. Our aim is to enhance the customer satisfaction by creating a customer-focused environment that is open to positive and negative feedback.

2. Our customers are given the option to directly contact the management in case of any service-related complaints, which ensures that no complaints go unnoticed in the ladder.

3. We try to resolve any complaints received, related to our service, within a definite time-frame.

4. The root cause of every complaint is identified, and measures are taken to correct that root cause. Corrective actions based on root cause analysis ensures that the complaint doesn’t recur.

5. Top management is actively involved in the complaint handling process, by verifying the complaints and their corrective actions every week.

Bobcares ensures that the customer complaints are well handled and our customers are delighted.

6. When we find that the issues are due to lack of training or resources, the management takes appropriate measures including personnel training or resource acquisition.

7. Bobcares also conducts a feedback survey every two months, to ensure that our customers are delighted and they can also provide any suggestion or complaint related to service.

8. Our survey form is designed in such a way that all the relevant factors in service can be rated in any of these categories – Outstanding, Above average, Satisfactory, Inadequate, Unsatisfactory.

9. After taking corrective action for the complaints, its effectiveness is measured by following up with the customers after a period of time.

10. The effectiveness and efficiency of the complaint-handling process is measured every quarter by the top management in the management review meeting.

Thus, Bobcares ensures that the customer complaints are well handled and our customers are delighted. To convey the importance of delighting the customers to our employees, we conduct periodical sessions on customer handling, right from the induction training. We have also set the customer satisfaction index as one of our quality objectives, and we increase the target value once we achieve the set targets. This helps us to keep on striving for better customer satisfaction every year.

Reeshma Mary Mathews, Sr. Software Engineer is the Chief Coach at Bobcares. She joined Bobcares in 2002 and was Team Leader for about three years, before taking up the challenge of maintaining Quality in the services provided by Bobcares. She plays a crucial role in ensuring that the Quality Management System(QMS) in Poornam is in compliance with ISO 9001:2000.