Customer Return Investigation

What are the key components of a good thorough investigation of a customer return. I work in packaging, so I'm thinking that reviewing the retain samples should be part of the process. Besides that, what else do I need?

Date or Lot Codes pin pointing the date it was run

Production records and quality records. 

You need all of this to conduct a proper investigation of the root cause.

Regards,

Simon

I would also add be careful of the hygiene of the return. You do not want to contaminate your factory  if the customer has attempted to use the material and has contaminated it, or if in transit it has been exposed. Quarantine the return and evaluate this first.

We are paperboard packaging manufacturer here. We typically don't accept returns of packaging as they would be quality issues only. We would investigate through production notations and quality inspection records. If the defect was noted and "corrected", our sorting efforts would be suspect and we would meet with all involved personnel to discuss the issue. We would replace or credit the suspect product or, after thorough investigation, explain that the defect resulted post shipping. That being said, we have done this twice in the 13 years I have been here. Our Quality Culture is very strong and very little goes out the door less than perfect. Nearly all of our customer complaints were found to be shipping or store damage. Sometimes the customer is wrong but usually because of someone down the line trying to cover their own backside by pointing a finger at us.

I recently read, but did not save, an article pertaining to the pharmaceutical industry.  They have pretty good guidance on reworking and verifying that product returned from a pharmacy is usable.

I bet it was an FDA guidance.