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

Services Standards
liberty, and representation 463 . Whilst the draft ISO DIS 10003 establishes
similar principles, these are formulated in less clear language 464 ,
• Requirements on the out-of-court settlement procedure: draft ISO DIS
10003, which sets up guidelines for the dispute resolution external to
organisations, should be taken into account, for the concrete shaping of
the dispute settlement procedure,
• Protection against insolvency: The technical standard should provide for
sufficient evidence of security for the refund of money paid to the service
provider 465 .
6. Monitoring and inspection
Monitoring and inspection is clearly a domain for standard-setting. The major
means for business to evaluate consumer satisfaction is effective monitoring
and review of consumer complaints, and consumer dispute settlement. On the
basis of effective monitoring and evaluation, corrective action can be taken to
improve the quality of the services.
• Monitoring and evaluating consumer satisfaction: the technical standards
should refer to part 8) of ISO 10002 ‘Guidelines for complaints handling
in organisations’ and to part 8) of the up-coming ISO 10003 ‘Guidelines
for dispute resolution external to organisations’,
• Taking corrective action: In this respect the technical standards should
refer to part 8) of ISO 10002 ‘Guidelines for complaints handling in
organisations’ and to part 8) of the up-coming ISO 10003 ‘Guidelines for
dispute resolution external to organisations’,
• Reporting: In addition to ISO 10002 ‘Guidelines for complaints handling
in organisations’ and the envisaged ISO 10003 ‘Guidelines for dispute
resolution external to organisations’, technical standards should provide
for the obligation to make the findings of the monitoring and evaluation of
the complaint handling and dispute settlement procedure publicly
available.
463 OJ L 155, 17.4.1998, 31.
464 The full title is: Quality management – Customer satisfaction – Guidelines for dispute
resolution external to organisations.
465 The ruling in Article 7 of Directive 90/314/EC on package travel could be taken as a
yardstick.
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