Many of you have probably had the occasional insane day when you thought: “This job would be so much easier if we didn’t have customers to deal with.” Apart from the demands for price concessions and the requests for unreasonable deliveries, there are a whole group of customer traits that can drive us batty.

As an auditor, I get to hear about all sorts of problems that have arisen because of something out of the company’s control—something that was caused by a customer’s error, failure or omission. After listening, I direct them back to the language of the standard. ISO 9001 doesn’t have an escape clause for when the customer screws up. It doesn’t say that it’s okay to guess at customer requirements if they don’t give you adequate information or that you’re off the hook for any other customer-spawned snafu.

With few exceptions, you can’t blame the customer for your failure to fulfill their requirements. The attempt to abdicate responsibility is particularly egregious in those instances where you have long established relationships with clients. 

Some of the practices that regularly affect fulfillment of the customer contract are:

 …