ISO/IEC Guide 76 Targets Consumer Satisfaction
January 22, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS
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A new International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) guide to developing service standards for consumers will benefit standards developers and service providers, according to the two organizations.
ISO/IEC Guide 76:2008 - Development of service standards - Recommendations for addressing consumer issues provides an introduction to how the key consumer principles relate to standards development.
These principles are safety, information, choice, the right to be heard, access, fairness, quality, redress, environmental issues and compliance with laws and regulations.
The guide provides a series of questions related to all stages of service delivery, from first thinking about the service, through engagement or purchase, service delivery to after sales or post engagement.
It then identifies the service elements, such as communication, personnel, billing or safeguards, to which the questions relate. Within each service element are a number of related topic areas.
For example, the service element "contract" includes related topics of clarity and transparency, objectivity and fairness and format. A full description is given for each of the topic areas.
Checklists also are provided for all topic areas within service elements. These checklists provide a way for service standard developers to establish whether their work covers all relevant topics. The checklists are also of benefit to organizations developing a new service or reviewing an existing one, ISO and IEC said.
Three examples of applying the guide are given in an annex; they include a hotel, a hairdresser and an insurance provider. They were chosen to represent different kinds of organizations and show how different service elements can assume greater or lesser significance in different service sectors.
Anne Ferguson, who coordinated the ISO/IEC Guide 76 working group in its later stages, said, "[ISO/IEC] Guide 76 enables a strategic approach to improving services in any domain, public or private sector. It can be applied whether or not a formal contract is entered into, whether the services are delivered in person or via the Internet and whether they are provided by large or small organizations."
For more information, visit http://www.iso.org.
Source: International Organization for Standardization (ISO).