Management system guidance
Customer focus
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Key benefits of customer focus
Customer focus involves determining customer requirements and ensuring that processes exist to meet the requirements and achieve customer satisfaction. Enhance customer satisfaction by ensuring that customer requirements are identified.
The principal message that Top management must convey is that the objective of the business is to satisfy your customers by ensuring a process exists to achieve the following:
- Identifying customer requirements;
- Meeting customer requirements;
- Enhancing customer satisfaction.
When auditing customer focus, the audit team should assess whether customer satisfaction is adequately determined and appropriate corrective action undertaken when things go wrong.
The customer feedback process should be audited as a process in its own right and not just as a clause in the standard. Determine how this process is planned, implemented and improved as these factors will affect the processes’ ability to provide meaningful information about the effectiveness of the QMS.
Customer focus in ISO 9000:2026 and ISO 9001:2026
ISO 9000:2026 keeps customer focus as the first of its seven quality management principles, with sharpened wording. Its restructured concepts now include customer experience as an additional concept. In practical terms, this means looking beyond whether a specification was met and considering how customers perceive every contact with your organization, from the first enquiry to after-sales support.
Customer focus runs through ISO 9001:2026. The clauses most closely linked to this principle are:
- Clause 5.1.2 - top management must make sure customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements are determined and met, that risks and opportunities affecting conformity and customer satisfaction are addressed, and that the focus on enhancing customer satisfaction is maintained;
- Clause 4.2 - customers are a key interested party, and you now also decide which of their requirements will be addressed through the QMS;
- Clause 6.1.2 and Clause 6.1.3 - risks to conforming products and services and to customer satisfaction, including during and after a disruption, and opportunities such as new products, services or ways of serving customers;
- Clause 8.2.1 - customer communication, now including information on contingency actions related to disruptions to supply;
- Clause 9.1.2 - monitoring customer satisfaction and deciding the methods for obtaining, monitoring and reviewing that information, with social media listed among possible sources;
- Clause 5.1.1 and Clause 7.3 - promoting a quality culture and ethical behaviour, which strongly influences how customers experience your organization.
More information on quality management principles
| Process approach | Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA), sequence and interaction, inputs, activities and outputs |
| Leadership | Establishing strategic direction, purpose and a quality culture |
| Engagement of people | Competence, knowledge, empowerment and quality culture |
| Improvement | Innovation, opportunities, root cause analysis, and change management |
| Evidence‐based decision making | Data analysis, process performance assessment, and risk-based thinking |
| Relationship management | Maintaining relationships with interested parties and providers in the supply chain |
More information on PDCA
Planning
Context
Planning
Support
Doing
Support
Operations
Checking
Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation
Acting
Improvement
How to apply the latest quality management principles
The latest and current quality management principles (QMPs), stated in ISO 9000:2026, are intended to provide the foundation by which any organization can continually improve its performance.
You can learn to apply the latest quality management principles in the context of your business's own particular operations by reviewing and documenting its activities in the context of each quality management principle.
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