This paper reports a critical examination of the customer complaints handli
ng system in a flavourings manufacturer. The findings revealed that the cus
tomer complaints, termed areas of concern (AOCs), were not of a recurring n
ature but due to the recurrence of root causes, namely manpower and method-
related problems. These were due to inadequacies in the AOC handling system
(i.e. poor categorization, lack of preventive action follow-up and inadequ
ate AOC data analysis) and company environment (i.e. lack of employee motiv
ation, inadequate education and training, poor communication and ineffectiv
e internal customer-supplier relationships). It was also found that a subst
antial number of AOCs arose due to problems at the latter end of the compan
y's internal customer-supplier chain. This was partly due to the susceptibi
lity of the associated areas to potential errors and also as a consequence
of their relative proximity to the external customers. This emphasized the
importance of the internal AOC system and its use as a preventive mechanism
to eliminate the occurrence of external AOCs.