Customer Quality Specialist

Job Description

Job Description

What We Do At Inland

Join Inland Packaging , a family‑owned, local label and packaging manufacturer with a global reach. We’re seeking a dedicated Customer Quality Specialist to support quality excellence for well‑known brands including Kraft Heinz, New Glarus Brewing, Purina, AriZona, and Coors Light.

At Inland, we value teamwork, innovation, and continuous improvement. We invest in advanced technology, provide hands‑on training, and offer clear opportunities for long‑term career growth.

Job Summary:

The Customer Quality Specialist is responsible for owning and leading Inland’s end-to-end customer and internal complaint processes while driving robust Root Cause Corrective Action (RCCA) execution across the organization. This role serves as a key interface between customers and internal teams, ensuring timely, effective resolution of quality issues and prevention of recurrence. This position operates with a high degree of autonomy and independent judgment, requiring the ability to assess complex quality issues, determine appropriate actions, and influence cross-functional decision-making. The role is accountable for outcomes and is expected to prioritize work, manage competing demands, and make sound decisions that impact customer satisfaction and business performance.

In addition to execution, this role has full ownership of the complaint handling and RCCA processes, including defining, standardizing, and continuously improving workflows, tools, and systems. The individual will be responsible for establishing scalable, efficient processes that drive consistency, accountability, and visibility across the organization.

This position requires strong leadership capability, as it is expected to scale into a people management role as the function grows. The individual will establish best practices, improve complaint handling systems, and build foundational processes that support future team expansion.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. This list of essential functions is not exhaustive and may be supplemented as necessary.

• Own and lead all aspects of the customer and internal complaint process, including intake, investigation, communication, resolution, and closure.
• Exercise independent judgment in evaluating quality issues, determining root cause methodologies, and selecting appropriate corrective actions.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for customer quality concerns, ensuring professional and timely communication.
• Facilitate and drive RCCA processes across cross-functional teams, ensuring thorough root cause identification and sustainable corrective actions.
• Influence cross-functional teams (operations, production, engineering, and sales) to drive alignment, accountability, and execution of corrective actions.
• Ensure consistency, accuracy, and completeness of data within the quality management and complaint tracking systems.
• Analyze complaint and quality data to identify trends, systemic issues, and opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Develop and standardize RCCA methodologies, tools, and training across the organization.
• Provide regular reporting on complaint metrics, resolution timelines, and quality performance to leadership, including insights and recommendations.
• Lead or support customer-facing discussions related to quality issues, including escalations and corrective action reviews.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives aimed at reducing defects, improving response time, and enhancing customer satisfaction.
• Support audits, compliance activities, and quality system improvements.
• Mentor and guide team members and cross-functional partners in problem-solving and quality methodologies.
• Participates in customer, supplier, and 3rd party audits including audit preparation and action item follow-up.
• Contributes to defining team structure, roles, and processes for a future complaints/RCCA team.
• Provides informal leadership, coaching, and direction to peers and project teams.

Essential skills and experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Quality, Engineering, Business or a related field with a minimum of 5 years of experience in a manufacturing environment, with direct experience in quality, complaints, or corrective action processes, and/or a combination of education and experience required.
• Demonstrated experience leading RCCA or structured problem-solving initiatives.
• Strong understanding of Quality Management Systems (QMS).
• Experience interacting with customers in a quality or technical capacity.
• Proven ability to analyze data, identify trends, and drive actionable insights.
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills.
• High sense of urgency and ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office and familiarity with ERP or quality systems.
• Knowledge and experience implementing and leading Quality Management Systems.
• Strong familiarity with auditing methods and processes.
• Ability and desire to coach, train, and mentor employees to grow and develop new skills to deliver positive results.
• Strong interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills.
• Strong problem-solving skills including proactive root cause identification and resolution.
• Ability to deliver multiple projects to completion using strong project management skills.
• Experience in tracking, analyzing, and reporting quality data.
• Ability to lead cross-functional teams to plan and execute projects on time and within budget.
• Ability to compose and produce reports, documents and related materials.
• High sense of urgency and ability to work self-directed and independently in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong attention to detail and accuracy.

Nonessential skills and experience:

• Advanced degree in Engineering, Science or Business or related field.
• ASQ CQE/CQA certification desirable

• Six Sigma Green Belt certification
• Knowledge of the print and packaging industry

Core Competencies:

• Emotional Intelligence Essentials
  • Establishing and sustaining trusting relationships by accurately perceiving and interpreting own and others’ emotions and behavior; leveraging insights to effectively manage own responses so that one’s behavior matches one’s values and delivers intended results.
• Financial Acumen
  • Utilizing financial data to diagnose business strengths and weaknesses and identify the implications for potential strategies, keeping a financial perspective in the forefront when making strategic decisions.
• Leading Change
  • Driving organizational and cultural changes needed to achieve strategic objectives; catalyzing new approaches to improve results by transforming organizational culture, systems, or products/services; helping others overcome resistance to change.
• Coaching and Developing Others
  • Providing feedback, instruction, and development guidance to help others excel in their current and future job responsibilities; planning and supporting the development of individual skills and abilities.
• Driving Execution
  • Translating strategic priorities into operational reality; aligning communication, accountabilities, resource capabilities, internal processes, and ongoing measurement systems to ensure that strategic priorities yield measurable and sustainable results.

Work Environment:

Operates in a demanding, fast-paced, people-oriented manufacturing environment with frequent changes and interruptions, and multiple project assignments. Works with a variety of people including vendors, customers, employees, managers, and executives.

Required Work Schedule:

Typically, they works standard business days and hours. Must be flexible to attend meetings, functions and to be available during off hours, weekends, and holidays to meet organizational initiatives. Some travel and overnight trips are required; upward of 10%.

Physical Requirements:

Position is generally sedentary; must be able to occasionally walk, sit, bend, stoop, push, pull and stand; light lifting up to 20lbs; 20/40 vision acuity