RE: Writing Corrective Actions for customers Summary of Responses and DETAILED Explanation

Subject: RE: Writing Corrective Actions for customers Summary of Responses and DETAILED Explanation
From: "Hemstreet, Deborah" <DHemstreet -at- kaydon -dot- com>
To: "Keith Hood" <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:46:43 -0400

Hi All,

I would firstly like to thank Geoff Hart, Gene Kim-Eng, and Michael West
for providing me with the most relevant information I could use to
proceed.

Since they posted to the entire groups, I do not need to summarize their
responses, but I want to publicly thank them for their helpful input.

Since the other responders were also to the entire list, and since those
responses could reflect negatively on the company that I am working
with, I would like to clarify.

Firstly, I have been a technical communicator for 20+ years. My primary
experience has been in the medical device hi-tech industry - but a move
from overseas to the US, to a State badly impacted by the economy, meant
I had to take a job wherever I could. I consider myself fortunate to
have found a job with a manufacturing company that values my experience
with the hope of improving all of their internal customer service
processes and procedures, as well as their external communications to
their customers. I am certainly not a glorified secretary.

My job is to write documents that communicate. As part of my analysis of
the documentation needs for this company, we uncovered inconsistent
communications to customers from different sources. However, my
background is medical devices - not manufacturing. Immediate patient
death is not going to be the result of a device failure. Ergo - we don't
need to stop the assembly line and call a halt to all we do until this
complaint is dealt with.

What do we need to communicate? How should it best be communicated in a
consistent and professional manner?

Since I've never worked on a communication of this type before, I wanted
to know more about how such customer communications are handled.
Ideally, the industry standard for these type of letters (which I did
not ask the group, as this is a Tech Com group, not an industry group).

The goal? For our CS dept. to begin issuing professional letters to
customers that provide information that is wanted and needed, without a
lot of fluff, but with consistent branding, and a sense that the
customer's issue has been related to.

Obviously there are different kinds of complaints, but at the end of the
day - what does the customer really NEED?

Following my letter to you, I continued my research. Finally I found
part of what I was looking for in a QA research magazine.

Basically, we need to make sure the Customer knows that their issue has
been related to, how it was solved, and most importantly (here I found
the thing I'd been missing) the service dept. needs to express
appreciation for the customer conveying the complaint as it helps us
improve our service to them....

So now, with helpful suggestions from my colleagues, I plan on working
on a template that will pull out the critical information from our
system and put it into a letter that the customer support people will
review, tweak (if necessary), and sign.

Thanks again to all who responded. I am sure it has and will result in
thought provoking discussion.

Deborah



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more.
http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList

True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.


Follow-Ups:

Previous by Author: Writing Corrective Actions for customers
Next by Author: RE: Bullfighter diagnosis on post
Previous by Thread: Re: Writing Corrective Actions for customers?
Next by Thread: RE: Writing Corrective Actions for customers Summary of Responses and DETAILED Explanation


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads