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

Hans-W. Micklitz
Rules are therefore needed on practical aspects of services: to pick up the letter
at the resident’s home, to deliver the letter in due time and to protect the
consumer against possible delays and losses.
a) Affordability, minimum content, safety, quality, payment
The technical standards only contain rules on the quality of the postal services.
They focus on the transit time. Again, the two EC Directives have set binding
requirements, at least on cross border services. Safety should be an issue not
only in terms of the accessibility of letterboxes and the size of the slit. However,
only the European standard 13724 on apertures of private letterboxes and letter
plates contains rules on the safety of private letterboxes, none of the other
standards deal with the risk that letters are opened during the transit time.
Billing and payment modalities are excluded, although postal services are
becoming private business.
Apertures of
private
letterboxes
and letter
plates
Requiremen
ts and test
methods
EN 13724
Quality of
service
Measureme
nt of transit
time of endto-end
for
single piece
priority mail
and first EN
13850
Guide to
implementat
ion of EN
13850
Quality of
service,
Measureme
nt of
complaints
and redress
procedures
EN 14012
Quality of
service,
Measureme
nt of loss of
registered
mail and
other types
of postal
service
using a
track and
trace
system
EN 14137
Quality of
service
Measureme
nt of transit
time of endto-end
for
single piece
non-priority
mail and
second
class mail
EN 14508
Affordability
Minimum
content
through
contract
terms
Quality 5.3.
Ergonomics
and safety
5.4.
confidentialit
y
5.5.
corrosion
and water
4. Transit
time as a
quality of
service
indicator,
5.
methodology
,
6. test mail
characteristic
s
4.
Measuremen
t (minimum
period before
an item is
considered
to be lost or
substantially
delayed;
calculation of
number of
lost or
4.
methodology
,
5. Real mail
studies,
6.
geographical
stratification,
7. estimators
for real
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