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

3. Pre-contractual stage and contract conclusion
Services Standards
The regulation of the pre-contractual stage constitutes a proper domain of EC
law on consumer protection. That is why the drafting of standard contract terms
becomes rather complicated. There are sector-related rules on particular types
of contracts that have to be taken into account and there are the requirements
under the Services Directive which seem to be much more important for
standardisers. Despite the relatively tight legal framework, there is ample room
to further develop the requirements in the pre-contractual stage, in particular on
those services which are not, or only to a limited extent covered by EC law.
• Services should be accessible to consumers, in particular universal
services,
• Services, including equipment and premises, should be designed so as
to be used by specific users to achieve their intended goals with
effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specific context 442 , if there is
need, also by children, the disabled and the elderly. In this respect
technical standards should take ISO/IEC Guide 71 or CEN/CENELEC
Guide 6 into account 443 ,
• Any information provided to consumers should be: provided promptly,
and should be comprehensible, easily accessible, clear in providing
contact details, in formats readily available, tailored to the specific needs
of customers, up-to-date, and capable of being easily stored 444 ,
• Pre-contractual information should be built around three parameters, (1)
information on the supplier, (2) information on the service and (3)
information on the contract 445 ,
• EC law contains highly differentiated information requirements depending
on the type of the service (package tour, time sharing, consumer credit,
financial services and “network” services (telecommunication, energy,
transport)). In addition, Article 26 of the Services Directive defines a
complete and fully harmonised set of information that has to be made
available in case of cross-border services,
442 See ISO/IEC Draft Guide 76 Development of service standards – Recommendations for
addressing consumer issues, 3.13.
443 ISO/IEC Policy statement, Addressing the Needs of Older Persons and Peoples with
Disabilities in Standardisation Work.
444 Based on BS 8477:2007 Code of practice for customer service, under 5.2.1.
445 This distinction can first be found in Directive 2002/65/EC distance selling on financial
services, OJ L 271, 19.1.2002, 16.
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