Customer communication
Plain-language summary
Define how you talk with customers: product information, enquiries and orders, feedback and complaints, handling their property, and contingency requirements when relevant.
What the clause is really asking
Communication with customers must cover the full relationship: what you tell them about product, how contracts and changes are processed, how complaints and feedback come in, customer property handling, and specific contingency communication where required.
What auditors look for
Auditors look for the channels working in practice: complaint intake routes, order change handling, evidence customers were informed of issues. Failures elsewhere (late notification of problems) get cited here.
Typical evidence
Complaint handling records; order/amendment processing; customer correspondence; defined contacts.
How to comply — recommendations
Name the owner of each channel — orders, complaints, technical queries — and define the bad-news rule: who tells the customer, how fast, in what format. The bad-news protocol is the one auditors and customers remember.
Common nonconformities
Complaints arriving via sales and dying there; no defined route for notifying customers of problems; order amendments accepted verbally with no record.
Related clauses
IATF 16949: 8.2.1.1 adds customer-agreed language/format (computerised where required)
In the book
Chapter 8 — Operation — Where the Product Is Won or Lost treats this clause family in full: what it is really asking, what auditors look for, the evidence that satisfies, how to make it work on a real floor, and where companies stumble.
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