If customers are disillusioned with the level of service they are receiving, many will move to a competitor. To help organisations improve levels of satisfaction among their customers, BSI British Standards has published two standards
BS ISO 10001 Customer satisfaction - Guidelines for codes of conduct for organisations provides guidance on designing and implementing a customer satisfaction code of conduct. Using this standard will potentially reduce customer confusion about the products and services they will receive, and clarifies what to do in the event of a quality problem.
BS ISO 10003 Quality management - Customer satisfaction - Guidelines for dispute resolution external to organisations is designed for situations when complaints cannot be resolved within an organisation. It gives guidance on the dispute resolution process, including direction on how to choose resolution services and when and how top management should be involved in the process.
Mike Low, Director of BSI British Standards, says: "Many people will have experienced poor customer service and this can be damaging to an organisation. Customers are not afraid to turn to a competitor if they feel they have been treated poorly. It's also very important that customers are aware of how their complaint will be handled and how disputes will be resolved.
"BSI offers a suite of customer satisfaction standards which have the potential to address these issues and improve customer confidence."
BS ISO 10001 and BS ISO 10003 form part of a suite of customer satisfaction standards, available from BSI British Standards. Used in conjunction with BS ISO 10002:2014, Guidelines for Complaints Handling in Organisations, an organisation can implement comprehensive and effective systems for dealing with customer satisfaction from complaint prevention and handling through to dispute resolution.
The standards are suitable for use by a wide range of organisations, including small businesses.
contributor
Darren Young
Darren has more than 20 years' experience in a range of customer service roles including project manager, head of customer service and operations director. He has worked in several sectors and managed major culture change programmes. He has an MBA in which he specialised in change management.
