Congress approves the law that limits a customer's telephone wait to 3 minutes and regulates robotic care

MADRID, 27 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The plenary session of Congress has approved, with the votes in favor of PSOE, PP, Unidas Podemos, ERC, Bildu, PNV, Ciudadanos, Más País-Equo, Coalición Canaria, CUP, Foro Asturias, Teruel Existe and the Regionalist Party of Cantabria (PRC). ), the law that regulates customer service and which, among its measures, limits waiting by phone for customer service to three minutes and regulates robotic service. In the vote Vox and Junts have decided to abstain.

The regulation limits the time to be answered by telephone in general information, claim and after-sales services, a reduction in time that will also benefit people affected by incidents in basic continuity services such as electricity, water or gas.

When the regulations come into force, companies in these sectors must report the reason for the problem and give an estimated time for the restoration of supply within a maximum period of two hours, among other measures.

Regarding the limits on the use of answering machines with which companies interact with consumers, the new law determines that the attention must be personalized, that is, it prohibits robotic attention, when the client requests it.

The text also includes guarantees for care for vulnerable people and people with disabilities, who may choose the format of communication with the customer service, and obliges customers to make public the evaluation of the care received.

The definition of operator, the obligation to guarantee that "95% of the requests for personalized attention are attended to", or that the Administration encourages the collaboration of the Council of Consumers and Users and the associations that make it up with the business organizations and the companies, are other measures included in the text.

The Minister of Consumption, Alberto Garzón, who was present during the debate on the text and spoke at the end of it, stressed that it is the first regulation on this subject to be approved in the country. In his speech, Garzón thanked the work of the deputies who have worked for this text to go ahead.

In addition, he has thanked the consumer associations that, as he has highlighted, "have been fighting for more than a decade to achieve this law" and that, as he explained, have been represented this Thursday in the guest rostrum of Congress.