Preamble
ELCOS considers customer retention as a key indicator of customer satisfaction and within that scope measurable quality objectives have been established. Furthermore, ELCOS considers on-time delivery performance and product conformity as prerequisites for customer retention and by the nature of its business inseparable from on-time delivery performance and product conformity by its suppliers. Corresponding quality objectives for ELCOS and for its suppliers, have been established accordingly.
Statement
Customer retention refers to the percentage of customer relationships that, once established, ELCOS is able to maintain on a long-term basis.
Customer retention is monitored by measuring each month the number of customers at the end of that month, the number of customers one year ago and the total number of new customers acquired during the past year.
Furthermore, customer retention is measured by the number of existing customers that have been invoiced each month.
On-time delivery performance is defined by the discrepancy between actual and promised delivery date.
Delivery performance for both ELCOS and its suppliers is measured each month by taking the arithmetic mean of the number of calendar days between actual and planned shipping date of that same month.
Product conformity is defined by the extent of which products delivered by ELCOS are meeting customer’s expectations.
Product conformity is measured each month by measuring the number of complaints from customers and non-conformances from suppliers registered that same month.
Postscript
Measuring methods of quality objectives based upon basic statistical analysis have been documented and implemented within the quality process of ELCOS.
The quality objectives are communicated to all employees and reviewed at least annually as part of the management review.
Planning to achieve the quality objectives as well as key performance indicators are integrated into operational processes and reassessed during the management review.
Monthly scorecards, communicated to all employees, track progress.
Where needed, actions are defined and monitored.