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

Services Standards
modo to business premises. Depending on the service, premises must
be hygienic and safe.
• Contract for services – standardisation of consumer contracts for
services covers the whole range of consumer concerns, from cradle to
grave, from the pre-contractual stage (advertising and information), over
contract conclusion (formal requirements, written form, role of internet),
up to the content of the contract (price and quality (safety), rights and
duties of the parties, what rights and what remedies for what parties),
and the post-contractual stage (guarantees, after-sales services,
complaint handling, dispute settlement, redress, protection against
insolvency).
• Inspection and monitoring – self-regulatory means, such as technical
standards require a mechanism to ensure the constant learning process
is enshrined in the concept of best practice. Without a feedback
mechanism, in which consumer satisfaction plays a prominent role, the
constant learning process cannot be organised. Therefore any technical
standard which does not provide for inspection and monitoring in order to
constantly improve the standard necessarily fails the best practice test.
These core consumer elements may be broken down into six different levels of
analysis which will be used as a common yardstick for reviewing the already
existing EC rules on services, as well as technical standards:
(1) education and skills,
(2) equipment and premises,
(3) pre-contractual stage and contract conclusion,
(4) content of contract,
(5) post-contractual stage,
(6) monitoring and inspection.
3. The procedural core consumer elements – democratic accountability
of standardisation
Democratic accountability may be discussed at two levels: at the more general
level regardless of the type of products and services in question, as well as in
more detail with regard to the already existing technical standards or those
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