Services Standards: Defining the Core Consumer Elements ... - ANEC

Hans-W. Micklitz
Information provisions:
• Availability, quality, correctness, completeness and comparability of
information concerning the service provision;
• Information about the applicable legislation and avenues of redress in the
case of dispute.
Quotation/contract/billing:
• Quotation (such as basis of calculation, commercial terms);
• Minimum requirements for contractual agreements (such as written
form);
• Billing.
Service quality requirements:
• Definition of quality criteria and/or processes;
• Quality management/internal and independent control;
• Accessibility.
Personnel:
• Training, qualification, and competence of personnel.
Customer satisfaction:
• Collection and method of measuring of customer satisfactions
evaluations;
• Publication of customer satisfaction and complaint statistics;
• Complaint-handling and redress.
ANEC’s core elements are composed of three parts, firstly detailed substantive
requirements on information, quotation, content of the contract and billing,
secondly requirements on professional skills and thirdly on inspection and
monitoring by using consumer satisfaction as a yardstick.
II.
Shaping and sharpening the concept of best practice
The survey and analysis of already existing efforts to give shape to best
practice has revealed uncertainty of what could and should be meant by best
practice in general and in the specific field of standardisation. This does not
mean that the review process turned out to be useless. The idea now is to
condense the available criteria into a proper concept which should then serve
as a blueprint of analysis.
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