Clause 3.8 of the application guideline of CNAS-CC12 "General Requirements for Quality Management System Certification Bodies" states: "Enterprise iso9001 certification certification bodies shall require certified organizations to provide the certification bodies with all relevant complaints records and records based on quality management system standards or other normative documents. Records of corrective actions taken are required.” Therefore, the auditor should request the auditee to provide records of customer complaints and corrective actions taken in response to them during the audit.

In the verification records of the author and many auditors, we can see the record that the auditee said "the customer has no complaints" (in fact, even if the customer has a complaint, the auditee may not or cannot tell the auditor directly) , some auditees even say that only customers who report product quality problems to law enforcement or the news media can be called "complaints", but is this understanding correct?

From the perspective of Chinese usage, the word "complaint" means to express one's dissatisfaction with something or a certain person by complaining, and "complaint" may not be simply dissatisfaction, but to express oneself of "anger". Of course, customers can report or complain to law enforcement agencies or news media about product quality issues, but complaining (appealing) to the customer service department of an enterprise is also a reasonable and legal way to express dissatisfaction. The "Complaint Hotline" is dedicated to accepting and handling customer complaints.

In the audit practice, the auditee often uses "no customer complaints" as the basis to indicate that the customer is satisfied with the auditee. It is inaccurate to take "no customer complaints" as one of the manifestations or evidence of customer satisfaction, because in the Note 1 and Note 2 of 3.1.4 in GB/T19000-2000 have clearly indicated: "Customer complaints are the most common expressions of low satisfaction, but no complaints do not necessarily ensure that customers are satisfied". As for whether the customer really has no complaints, or the auditee is deliberately concealing it, it is difficult for the auditor to make an accurate judgment at the audit site unless the auditee finds obvious deficiencies in quality management control at the audit site.

During the audit process, some auditees did not inform the auditors of the real situation of customer complaints, and the auditors believed it to be true. If the auditee says that "customers have no complaints", the auditor should remind the auditee not to conceal the fact that customers have complained. It is not necessarily a good thing that customers have no complaints. It is necessary to tell the auditee that loyal customers are often It arises from the sincere and proper handling of customer complaints (including proper explanations) and ensuring that the same problem does not arise again. If you want to know more, please refer to "What are the steps for the implementation of the enterprise ISO9001 certification quality management system"

In response to the above, according to ISO 9001:2000 standard 8.2.1 requirements "As a measure of the performance of the quality management system, the organization shall monitor the customer's perception of whether the organization has met its requirements, and determine the acquisition and use of such information. method”, usually, the auditee will use the method of distributing and recycling the “Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire” to investigate whether the customer is satisfied. The author suggests that, as a certification body, it is also possible to use this method to directly investigate the customers of the certification body's customers, and no longer listen to the auditee's side words on whether the customer is satisfied, so as to objectively grasp the customer's satisfaction with the auditee. degree. This has two advantages: first, it reflects the spirit of the certification body being responsible for the auditee and providing value-added services for the auditee from the perspective of a "third party"; second, it reduces the certification body's certification risk. Of course, the disadvantage of this is that it adds a lot of work to the certification body, which may be difficult to operate in practice, but it is indeed a good practice that is worth discussing.