ISO 9001 standard: challenges, benefits and implementation of Customer Centricity

The international standard ISO 9001, which defines the standards of quality management, is based on 7 main principles, including Customer Orientation. Let’s take a closer look at the challenges and advantages of this principle and the actions to be taken to strengthen customer orientation and achieve the highest level of quality for its products and services.

 

What is ISO 9001?

ISO 9001 is a quality management standard. This standard defines several criteria to enable companies tocontinuously improve the quality of their products and services. A company implementing such a certification process is thus committed to reducing malfunctions in its QMS (Quality Management System), to optimize the quality of its offer and to meet the requirements of its customers.

The ISO 9001 standard is based on the 7 main principles of quality management (or PMQ) introduced in 2000:

1. Customer orientation : the company must be able to adapt to the needs of its customers;
2. Leadership : managers must be involved in defining the strategic orientations of quality management and in creating conditions conducive to the achievement of objectives;
3. Employee involvement: to ensure the operational efficiency of the teams and strengthen the ability to create value at all levels of the company;
4. Process approach : the company must manage activities as correlated processes, belonging to a coherent system;
5. Improvement: the organization must demonstrate its willingness to integrate quality management into a continuous improvement approach ;
6. Evidence-based decision-making (such as analysis and evaluation of data and information);
7. Management of relationships with interested parties (suppliers, service providers, etc.) to promote sustainable performance.

This international standard can be used by all companies, regardless of size, sector of activity and country of operation.

 

Customer orientation: one of the key principles of ISO 9001

One of the key objectives of the quality management system is to meet customer requirements and anticipate their expectations and needs.

This principle of customer orientation encourages the company to obtain and maintain, in a sustainable way, the trust of customers and other stakeholders (suppliers, service providers, business partners, etc.) and to offer the best possible quality to satisfy its customers.

How to adopt the Customer Orientation principle of ISO 9001?

A “customer-oriented” company (as opposed to a “product-oriented” company) is an organization that puts the customer at the center of its concerns. Beyond offering a quality product or service, it is truly a question of integrating customer expectations and needs at the center of all decisions, objectives, strategies and actions, at all levels of the company.

The needs of customers and their expectations must therefore be taken into account in the design, development and manufacture of the product (or execution of the service).

For the company, implementing a customer orientation approach involves:

• Understand its clientele and its current and future needs;
• Identify direct and indirect customers for whom the company can create value;
• Constantly listen to its customers and identify their needs (via surveys, questionnaires, analysis of complaints and returns, exchanges on social networks or in physical stores, etc.);
• Link the company’s strategic objectives to customer expectations;
• Communicate on the needs and expectations of customers at all levels of the company;
• Understand the customer’s perception of the product or service and the value chain;
• Plan, create and deliver products or services aligned with customer needs;
• Identify the actions to be deployed to bring value at each stage of the customer journey;
• Personalize the customer relationship according to customer needs, habits, expectations and profiles;
• Analyze, measure and monitor the level of customer satisfaction through several key indicators (KPIs) and implement corrective actions;
• Identify stakeholder needs that can help improve customer satisfaction;
• Take care of the relationship with the customer to ensure sustainable performance and deal with complaints;
• Instilling a culture of customer centricity at all levels of the company;
• …

The advantages of the Customer Orientation principle of ISO 9001

The implementation of the customer-centric principle of ISO 9001 offers several benefits to the organization. This allows him to:

• To bring more value to the customer;
• Strengthen customer satisfaction;
• Improve customer retention;
• Boost sales performance ;
• To improve the company’s brand image;
• To broaden the range of customers;
• Increase sales;
• Strengthen its competitiveness on international markets;
• To ensure the sustainable growth of the company;
• …