New Spanish Customer Service Law 2024

This Tuesday, the Spanish Council of Ministers approved the Customer Service Law, also known as the “3-Minute Law”.

As its nickname suggests, the future law will bring about significant changes for all companies offering customer service.

In order to provide faster, more accessible and more personalised assistance, they will need to make changes to their call centres and customer service departments, which will involve using advanced customer service software and/or hiring more staff.

THE ORIGINS OF THE SPANISH CUSTOMER SERVICE LAW

This law is not entirely unknown. If we recall, at the beginning of last year, Alberto Garzón, the Minister of Consumer Affairs, presented a draft law that was about to be published in the Official State Gazette due to the electoral campaign.

It stipulated that the customer service provided by public and private companies in the utilities, transport, postal services, electronic communications and financial services sectors, as well as companies with more than 250 employees or an annual turnover of more than 50 million euros, must meet certain quality standards.

As the draft law comes into force on 27 February 2024, the customer service departments of these companies must start preparing to comply with the new regulations.

AIMS OF THE SPANISH CUSTOMER SERVICE LAW

“There are few experiences as universally shared as the frustration caused by having to endure what seems like an endless wait when trying to deal with an urgent complaint,” said Pablo Bustinduy, Minister of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and Agenda 2023, at the press conference following the draft law’s approval.

“There are few experiences as universally shared as the frustration caused by having to endure what seems like an endless wait.” – Pablo Bustinduy

We are all customers, and we have all waited endlessly on the phone to resolve an important issue.

That is why the new Spanish law on customer service aims to create a customer service that is.

• Efficient: by reducing waiting times on the phone, shortening incident communication times and speeding up incident resolution.
• Accessible: ensuring that the most vulnerable consumers, such as the disabled and the elderly, are properly served.
• Personalised: ensuring that customers are not served exclusively by automated systems that cannot identify, let alone resolve, their problem.

MANDATORY REQUIREMENTS OF THE CUSTOMER SERVICE LAW

In order to achieve these three objectives, the law lays down minimum quality standards that all customer service providers must meet:

1. COMMUNICATION CHANNELS

Companies must have at least one postal channel, one telephone channel and one electronic communication channel. These channels must be accessible to all consumers.

Customers can submit complaints, claims or incidents in Spanish or one of the co-official languages.

2. PERSONALISED ATTENTION

Customer service cannot rely solely on automated responders or conversational bots.

Consumers interacting with virtual assistants must be able to speak to a specialised agent upon request.

In addition, the operator must respond within three minutes, which is guaranteed in 95% of cases.

If the customer is not satisfied with the service they receive, they have the right to speak to a supervisor or quality manager.

The article also states that companies cannot abandon a call because of long waiting times.

It also adds that vulnerable people must receive all necessary assistance in addition to individual and personalised support.

3. TECHNICAL AND HUMAN RESOURCES

Companies providing customer service must ensure that they have the material and technical resources necessary to fulfil their tasks and that they have properly trained staff.

In addition to sector-specific training, staff must have special training in assisting vulnerable consumers, particularly disabled or elderly people.

4. TELEPHONE SERVICE

Customer service telephone lines must be free to the customer (900 numbers, landlines or mobile phones) and can be provided by instant messaging.

All companies using special rate lines must provide an alternative number free of charge to the consumer.

Under no circumstances can calls be diverted from a freephone number to a chargeable number, whether by telephone, SMS or other means.

For people with hearing impairments, the telephone channel must be accessible and, if requested, the company must provide an alternative instant messaging system, sign language video interpreting system or similar.

This section reiterates that 95% of calls must be answered in less than three minutes and clarifies that a call is not considered answered until the customer has been able to state the reason for their communication and request personal attention from an agent.

5. CUSTOMER IDENTIFICATION

All companies must provide their customers with an identification key linked to their complaint or directly, an identification number of the own customer.

This will allow customers to follow the status of their complaint quickly and easily.

6. JUSTIFICATION OF THE COMPLAINT

In addition to providing an identification key, the customer service team must always provide a justification stating the reason for the complaint, date and time.

If the enquiry, complaint, claim or incident is communicated by telephone, video call or instant messaging, the company must record the conversation (with the customer’s consent) and indicate how it can be accessed.

In this case, a copy of the recording or transcription must be kept until the case is resolved.

This justification will be provided via the same contact method and the Company will need to request the Customer’s details in order to provide it if they have not been provided previously.

7. RESOLUTION OF INCIDENTS

The resolution of an enquiry, complaint, claim or incident must answer all the customer’s questions without using generic answers, and cases will not be closed, even if the deadline for resolution has expired.

If the customer does not provide the complaint correctly, they will be given 10 working days to provide the necessary information.

The resolution communication must be made through the same contact channel where the complaint was submitted.

Similarly to the previous article, if it is initiated by telephone, videoconference or instant messaging, the business must record the conversation and make it available to the customer.

8. 24 HOUR AVAILABILITY

The customer service must follow the business hours of the company. However, it must be active 24 hours a day, every day of the year, to receive service-related incidents.

9. SERVICE ACCESSIBILITY

Customer service must be provided using media and tools that are accessible to all, with equal treatment and without discrimination.

Where this is not possible, additional means must be provided to ensure access for people with disabilities or the elderly.

This means that if vulnerable consumers cannot be served through regular channels, new communication channels must be made available.

10. DIFFERENTIATION OF CUSTOMER SERVICE

Customer service must be clearly differentiated from other company activities so that customers know who to contact to resolve enquiries, complaints, claims and incidents.

These channels must not be used to offer products, services or other commercial offers unless they are related to resolving customer enquiries.

11. TIME LIMIT FOR RESOLVING COMPLAINTS

Inquiries, complaints, claims or incidents submitted through any means must be resolved within less than fifteen business days of their submission (unless a different deadline is required by industry regulations).

However, in the event of a business continuity incident, enquiries arising from this scenario must be responded to within less than two hours.

The company’s communication must include information about the cause of the incident and the estimated time to restore service.

12. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEYS

Companies need to implement and document a system for assessing customer satisfaction.

The information obtained can be used to continually improve customer service.

However, surveys cannot be conducted until the enquiry, complaint, claim or incident has been resolved.

13. COOPERATION

The administration will promote cooperation between the Consumer and User Council and the consumer associations that are members of it, and the companies covered by this law, in order to ensure the quality and effectiveness of customer service.

These cooperation frameworks will follow the legal provisions established in the Spanish General Law for the Defence of Consumers and Users.

14. DATA PROTECTION LAW

All personal data processed in the context of customer service must comply with the law on the protection of personal data and guarantee the digital rights of consumers.

HOW TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE FUTURE CUSTOMER SERVICE LAW?

The passing of this law represents a radical (and much-needed) change, which for the contact centre sector means an urgent digital transformation.

Meeting shorter response times, enabling alternative messaging channels and routing calls to the best agent: it’s not as easy as it seems. Or is it?

What we do know for sure is that contact centres equipped with the right tools to manage customer incidents will have no trouble meeting the quality standards mentioned above.

As Jorge García, our Product Director, explained in an interview with COPE, omnichannel and artificial intelligence will be two key elements in achieving this.

Omnichannel customer service software and the activation of alternative contact channels are essential:

• Reduce inbound call volumes.
• Ensure personalised and efficient assistance across all channels.
• Have the technical resources to manage all channels.
• Offer more communication channels at no cost to the customer.
• Speed up the resolution of incidents reported through multiple channels.
• Automate the sending of satisfaction surveys after case resolution.
• Monitor in real time the percentage of calls answered within 3 minutes.

On the other hand, we believe that artificial intelligence, even if it can’t be used solely as a tool for assistance, will become a key element in order to:

• Eliminate telephone queues through a callback system.
• Ensure 24-hour service availability by any means.
• Identify user intent and purpose.
• Redirect the call to the agent best suited to handle the enquiry, even contacting the agent who previously handled the customer’s enquiry.
• Provide self-service for simple enquiries that do not require agent intervention.
• Facilitate customer identification and inquiry tracking across all communication channels.
• Automatically generate and deliver complaint justifications across multiple channels.
• Transcribe all conversations, regardless of channel.
• Suggest answers and provide relevant information for agents to assist customers in a personalised manner.

Is your company’s customer service affected by the future law? Contact our team of experts on +34 900 670 750 or fill out this form. We’re here to help!