ISA’s clients have a right to appeal a finding and or a certification decision. To initiate a formal appeal please contact ISA’s office. All appeals are handled by personnel different than those who carried out the audits and made the certification decisions. No discriminatory action against the appellant shall happen as a result of submission, investigation and decision on an appeal.
ISA’s clients have a right to appeal a finding and or a certification decision. To initiate a formal appeal please contact ISA’s office. All appeals are handled by personnel different than those who carried out the audits and made the certification
Complaints can be filed with ISA, against ISA, its employees and subcontractors, misuse of the ISA Mark by a Registered Client, or use/misuse of the ISA Mark by a non-registered Client. ISA personnel or its representatives, including those acting in a managerial capacity will investigate any appeal, complaint or dispute if they have not been directly involved in any activities as stated in Conflict of Interest (Section 39 of this document) towards the Client, or any other party involved in the appeal, complaint or dispute in question within the last two years.
Upon receipt of a complaint, ISA shall acknowledge the receipt of the complaint with the client, whenever possible. Complaint is reviewed to determine if it is related to the certification activities and properly addressed. Should the complaint be related to a certified client the review of the complaint will be conducted taking into consideration the effectiveness of the certified management system.
Customer complaints shall be processed as they are received, and addressing them based on the type of complaint. Through the investigation process ISA shall ensure the validity of the complaint and verification of the information received from the client. The customer complaints shall be documented in the corrective action system and researched to determine the root cause of the complaint, corrective and preventive action.
Upon completion of the investigation ISA shall document a formal notification indicating the end of the complaint handling process to the client. Furthermore ISA together with the client shall determine whether and if so to what extent the subject of the complaint and its resolution shall be made public
All requests for corrective actions shall be responded to within 30 calendar days from receipt of complaint.
All feedback received is reviewed and, if response requested, the response is provided within 30 calendar days from receipt of complaint.
If the corrective action includes a non-scheduled audit, such audit shall be completed within 90 calendar days from receipt of complaint. The corrective action process shall ensure that :
- Containment activities are undertaken (if applicable)
- Conformance to the applicable standard is re-established
- Root cause analysis is complete
- Individual corrective actions address all root causes
- Completion dates for the implementation of all corrective actions is defined.
- Complaints that cannot be resolved by ISA shall be referred to ANAB.
Submission, investigation and decision on complaints shall not result in any discriminatory actions against the complainant.
ISA’s complaint handling process and forms are available by contacting ISA’s office.