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

Services Standards
emergency measures, but it might produce problems in that it redefines
well established EC concepts, such as choice and quality.
a) Impact on standardisation of services
These international standards and guidelines will from the basis of analysing the
degree to which standardisation of services takes core consumer elements into
consideration.
5. A first attempt at systematisation
The stock taking indicates that so far consumer services have not been at the
forefront of this development. There are very few initiatives taken so far, mostly
in the relevant business circles.
a) Original consumer services
Strictly speaking there is only a limited set of projects which bear a strong
consumer focus
• At the national level, the guidelines on the safety of services developed
by the Finnish consumer agency, and
• At the international level, the ISO/IEC Draft Guide 76 on Development of
service standards – Recommendations for addressing consumer issues,
as well as the (envisaged) series of ISO 10001 to 10003 on consumer
satisfaction – though not particularly designed for consumer services.
• At the European level, the BSI project on a “cross sectoral
standardisation feasibility study”,
• and the AFNOR project ‚Accessibility services: opportunity and feasibility
of a standardisation work in the area of transport and tourism’, ‘Feasibility
and opportunity to develop standardisation in the field of residential
homes for elderly people’, ‘Feasibility and opportunity to develop
standardisation in the field of services for resident people’, as well as the
NEN project ‘Smart house services for elderly and disabled people’.
This means that the only piece available so far that might provide guidance on
the standardisation of services results from ISO/COPOLCO. The situation might
change once the BSI feasibility study has been completed. This finding seems
astonishing in particular as the European Community played and is playing a
highly important role in standardisation ever since 1985, which has even
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