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

Services Standards
Monitoring
and
inspection in
binding law
Monitoring
and
inspection in
co-regulation
and selfregulation
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
7. Impact on standardisation of services
Quality of
service,
Measureme
nt of
complaints
and redress
procedures
EN 14012
8.
Measuremen
t of
complaints
(records,
statistical
indicators,
reporting
statistics
about
complaints),
9. Quality
control
system
Quality of
service,
Measureme
nt of loss of
registered
mail and
other types
of postal
service
using a
track and
trace
system
EN 14137
6. Reporting
7. Quality
control
Quality of
service
Measureme
nt of transit
time of endto-end
for
single piece
non-priority
mail and
second
class mail
EN 14508
The set of standards available in this field seem to start from the premise that
contract making and contract shaping should be left outside the scope of
standardisation. This is all the more astonishing given that the two Directives
97/67/EC and 2002/39/EC set the issue aside and thereby pave the way for
initiatives at European level. One reason might be that the market for postal
services has only been opened up gradually. That is why private contracts, in
particular between consumer and service providers are of limited importance so
far. The market for letters below 20 grams will not be opened before 1 st January
2008. One may even wonder to what extent private postal services are more
and more replaced by emailing. However, these tendencies can not fully explain
why the technical standards under scrutiny are dealing with three issues only,
aperture of private letterboxes, transit times and complaint management. Set
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