Quality Management System & After-Sales Service Structure

The Quality Management System and After-Sales Service

The QMS is a management system for a customer-focused organization that involves all employees in a continuous process of improvement. It integrates quality into all company activities. To achieve this, it is necessary to set up quality standards, procedures, and work practices. The goal is to maintain a competitive advantage, evaluate a company's performance, and achieve business excellence. The international standard that reflects a quality management system is the ISO 9000 Certification. Every company that has passed the quality audit and is registered for ISO 9000 gets a certificate. This certificate guarantees a quality standard and transmits confidence in the products and services offered by the companies that use them. The idea is to create quality awareness in all processes within the company.

In after-sales service, quality has two components:

• Internal quality: The technical and operational aspects of the product
• External quality: Assessment by the customers of the after-sales service

Techniques and Tools for Quality Management

1. Brainstorming
2. Value analysis
3. Structures trees
4. Cause-and-effect diagram (Ishikawa or fishbone diagram)
5. Flowchart
6. Data recording method
7. Graphs and histograms
8. P-charts or control charts
9. Benchmarking

Structuring the After-Sales Service

After-sales services can be integrated within the company or outsourced.

An after-sales department should have:

1. Customer service. Functions:

• Receive and address incidents
• Discriminate calls
• Manage incidents

2. Technical support service (with experts and trained staff)

• Assisted self-repair: Help over the phone, chat, video conference, etc.
• On-site repair: An expert will do the repair on the customer's premises.
• Repair shop: Repair on the supplier's premises.

3. Other departments or services involved in the structure

• Transportation: Delivery times and quality in service are essential.
• Warehouse: To store components and parts.
• Follow-up customer satisfaction about the solution. It can be performed by after-sales, customer service, or the sales department.

Follow-up is important to assess the quality of the service, detect weak points, and identify new customer needs.