Law 10/2025, of December 26, Regulating Customer Service Services

I. GENERAL PROVISIONS HEAD OF STATE 26698 Law 10/2025, of December 26, regulating customer service services. FELIPE VI KING OF SPAIN To all who see and understand this. Know ye: That the General Courts have approved and I hereby sanction the following law:

PREAMBLE I In accordance with Article 51 of the Spanish Constitution, public authorities must guarantee the defense of consumers and users, protecting, through effective procedures, their safety, health, and legitimate economic interests.

In fulfillment of this constitutional mandate, the consolidated text of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007, of November 16, incorporates, within the scope of state competencies, the general regime for the protection of consumers and users.

Article 8 of the consolidated text of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws has qualified the protection of the rights of consumers and users through effective procedures as a basic right, and in its Article 21, it requires that the regime for verification, complaint, guarantee, and possibility of waiver or return established in contracts with consumers and users ensures the nature, characteristics, conditions, and utility or purpose of the good or service, as well as the ability to effectively claim in case of error, defect, or deterioration, enforce the offered quality or service level guarantees, and obtain equitable refund of the market price of the good or service, totally or partially, in case of non-compliance or defective compliance. To safeguard these basic rights of consumers, this law has established certain requirements regarding customer service services.

Specifically, the aforementioned Article 21 contemplates the obligation for companies to ensure that their offices and information and customer service departments record complaints and claims, and if such services use telephone or electronic attention to carry out their functions, they must guarantee direct personal attention, beyond the possibility of using other technical means available to them complementarily.

Likewise, the approval of Law 4/2022, of February 25, on the protection of consumers and users in situations of social and economic vulnerability, imposes on administrations the obligation to ensure the protection of the rights of vulnerable consumers and users.

These generally imposed requirements are specified in sectoral regulations regarding certain basic services of special economic importance, such as telecommunications, water supply and distribution, energy, financial services, and transport. For these services, customer service should be defined as another parameter that determines the quality of service provision.

However, current regulations have highlighted the need for new actions, as administrative practice reveals that a significant number of complaints handled by competent authorities could be resolved through customer service services. Furthermore, it is anticipated that customer service services will become increasingly important in the future as a preliminary step before consumers decide to take legal action, making their modernization and adaptation to different commercial uses necessary.

II Practice shows that many complaints and claims filed with consumer and user protection services would not be filed if companies had more effective customer service services. Likewise, the Annual Report of the Ombudsman for the 2020 exercise indicates that, in the consumer field, complaints in this matter referred specifically to the functioning of customer service services. The customer service service is key to guaranteeing a good commercial image for the company and is determinant of the degree of satisfaction of consumers and users. These services should be respectful and in line with criteria emanating from pronouncements by competent authorities, as well as case law. As important as maximizing the technical quality of services provided, such as service continuity, compliance with offers, contracts entered into, or coverage levels, is improving the relationship with customers through service attention.

In a high number of complaints and claims presented to consumer and user protection services, there is a repetition of calls to customer service departments, staffed by personnel who, on occasion, have not received specific training, provide diverse and even discrepant information, and do not facilitate key or identification numbers as provided in Article 21 of the consolidated text of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws.

Such deficiencies not only generate dissatisfaction among consumers and users but also discredit the commercial image of companies, with the consequent collateral damage to them within the market.

This generalized perception of the multiple deficiencies of customer service services becomes especially serious regarding companies that provide successive tract services, which are basic for citizens, such as telecommunications, supplies, and others of analogous nature.

Furthermore, as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, significant changes have been generated in the consumption habits and dynamics of consumers and users in our country, with a significant increase in online goods purchases and the contracting of services via the same channel.

In this sense, it was considered necessary to adopt measures to this effect through Royal Decree-Law 37/2020, of December 22, on urgent measures to address situations of social and economic vulnerability in the housing sector and in transport matters. This norm is linked, in particular, to the boom in distance commercial relations, which have increased due to the pandemic, making it necessary to eliminate obstacles to the effective exercise of the rights of consumers and users. Thus, the consolidated text of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws was modified with the aim, among others, of guaranteeing that offices and information and customer service services are designed using means and supports that safeguard the principles of universal accessibility and it is foreseen that, in the event that the business makes a telephone line available to consumers and users to communicate with it regarding the contract concluded, the use of such line does not entail for consumers and users a cost higher than the cost of a call to a standard geographic fixed or mobile telephone line. Furthermore, in those basic services of general interest, companies providing them must have a free customer service telephone.

Based on these considerations, with the fundamental objective of improving the protection of consumers and users and in line with the New Consumer Agenda of the European Commission, adopted on November 13, 2020, through this law, the regulation of corporate customer service services is addressed comprehensively, establishing minimum quality parameters that these services must comply with obligatorily, paying special attention to the rights and interests of vulnerable consumers.

III This law is structured in a preamble, four chapters grouping a total of twenty-three articles, a single additional provision, a single transitional provision, a single repealing provision, and eight final provisions.

Chapter I of the law is dedicated to general provisions. Article 1 determines as the object of the law the establishment of minimum quality parameters for customer service services, which will be mandatory for companies.

Article 2 delimits the scope of application of the law by reason of activity: sale of goods and provision of certain services. Additionally, it is specified that the law will only apply to services of general interest provided by public administrations when there is a consumer relationship with the clientele, that is, when public administrations act in the capacity of entrepreneurs.

The defining criterion for companies excluded from the scope of application of this law, except for the aforementioned basic services of general interest which are always included, stems from Recommendation EC/2003/361, of May 6, on the definition of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. This category consists of "enterprises that employ fewer than 250 workers and whose annual turnover does not exceed 50 million euros or whose annual balance sheet total does not exceed 43 million euros," to which the provisions contained in the consolidated text of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws will continue to apply, notwithstanding. However, in the interest of proportionality, this criterion has been modulated such that this law applies to all companies that meet any of these requirements, not considering them cumulatively, as well as to refer to the concept of group of companies in the sense of Article 42 of the Commercial Code. With this modulation, it is sought to also include, within the scope of application of this law, providers of goods or service providers that operate through different companies but that, collectively, have economic capacity and resources to meet the provisions of the norm.

Regarding the scope of application of the norm, it must be taken into account that there are sectors that currently have their own regulations governing certain aspects of customer service services. Therefore, in the interest of legal certainty, paragraph 4 of Article 2 positivizes the principle of specialty. To this effect, sectoral regulations governing the aspects included in this norm will apply preferentially. This principle of specialty operates both with respect to national sectoral regulations, some of which are modified by the law itself through its final provisions, and with respect to European Union Regulations, which apply directly.

Likewise, in the field of entities in the financial sector, the application of sectoral regulations on customer service services is foreseen, with the objective of guaranteeing the highest levels of protection also in this sector and the adequacy to the principle of proportionality in the application of the obligations collected in its sectoral regulation, with the present text being supplementary.

Furthermore, the non-application of certain provisions of this norm must be expressly established, due to the particularities of the financial sector and with the sole objective of safeguarding legal certainty. This would be the case, first, of the specific paragraphs of Articles 4 and 13 as they are not compatible with the functioning of customer service services in the financial field. Second, regarding Articles 18 and 19, the particularities of the financial sector make their application overlap with sectoral regulation. Regarding Articles 21 and 22, there is an overlap with the control, evaluation, and internal audit mechanisms to which financial entities are already subject, which already guarantee high standards of financial consumer protection. And finally, the exclusion of Article 23 derives from the need to guarantee that supervision and sanction in this matter fall upon the Bank of Spain, the National Securities Market Commission, and the General Directorate of Insurance and Pension Funds, depending on the type of supervised entity, as indicated in paragraph 5 of Article 2.

The law establishes the general principles that must govern customer service services, paying special attention to service-providing companies and, more specifically, those that have a direct and significant impact on the environment, such as energy supply companies. Additionally, it requires that customer service interlocution means be included in contracts. Finally, it establishes the obligation for companies to respond to inquiries, complaints, claims, and incidents in the same language in which they were made.

Chapter II addresses the regulation of the minimum quality levels required for corporate customer service services, regulating basic aspects of these services such as the minimum means that companies must make available to their clientele. In this sense, it is considered basic that the service be provided, at least, through the same medium through which the contractual relationship began, as it is considered the most suitable for the clientele to carry out these communications, given that it was initially chosen by their part. Nevertheless, in order to facilitate communication regardless of the clientele's place of residence, the initiation of communications by the clientele through distance communication means, such as postal, telephone, or electronic means, must also be allowed.

At this point, it is intended that the norm cover technological developments both present and future, with the possibility of using artificial intelligence systems that facilitate and systematize communications between the parties. Nevertheless, it is considered fundamental that the clientele can access, if they so wish, personalized attention from the company, which must be provided by trained personnel.

Regardless of the means chosen by the company to provide the service, Article 10 contemplates specific provisions regarding telephone attention, as it is usually the most common means made available to the clientele by companies to carry out communications between the parties.

This chapter also contemplates the minimum requirements for the processing and resolution of inquiries, complaints, claims, and incidents, including the material and human means, to which personnel must be trained sufficiently and proportionally to guarantee the rights provided for in the norm, taking into account the characteristics of the company's clientele as a whole.

For its part, Chapter III contemplates the regulation of the obligations to which companies must adhere regarding the implementation of a system for evaluating the level of service quality achieved, which will include, in any case, the parameters contemplated in Chapter II and an updated copy of the descriptive documentation of said system, which must be available to the competent administration in consumer matters. This evaluation system must be audited annually to check the reliability and precision of the measurements published by companies. Given the broad spectrum of sectors to which the norm applies, auditing companies carrying out these works must be accredited before the National Accreditation Entity, to guarantee their technical solvency and knowledge of the different sectors audited.

Chapter IV is dedicated to the regime of infractions and sanctions, and it is foreseen that the non-compliance with the obligations imposed by the law constitutes an infraction in the matter of protection of the rights and interests of consumers and users, sanctioned by competent authorities in accordance with what is provided in the consolidated text of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws, as well as in autonomous legislation that applies as appropriate.

Likewise, the law includes a single transitional provision, which establishes a period of six months from the entry into force of the law for adaptation to the established novelties, and a single repealing provision.

Likewise, in the interest of legal certainty, four final provisions are incorporated aimed at modifying the Law 3/1991, of January 10, on Unfair Competition, the Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007, of November 16, approving the consolidated text of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws, Law 44/2002, of November 22, on Measures for the Reform of the Financial System, and Law 11/2022, of June 28, General on Telecommunications.

Regarding the modification of the consolidated text of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws, paragraphs 1 and 4 of Article 20 are modified to include a provision that allows the consumer or user to know all the components that make up the final complete price and that will allow checking its accuracy. On the other hand, a provision on reviews is collected that allows increasing their reliability by obliging the entrepreneur to guarantee that published reviews have been made by consumers and users who have truly used or acquired the good or service.

Article 62 is modified to guarantee that the will of the consumer or user is manifested unequivocally.

As for Law 3/1991, of January 10, on Unfair Competition, Article 27 is modified to add a new practice considered unfair due to being misleading, that is, directing to consumers individually and personally without informing in the same communication of the parameters used for such personalization.

In the financial field, maximum protection for the clientele and high legal certainty must be guaranteed. Therefore, the sectoral regulation of client protection collected in Law 44/2002, of November 22, is modified with the objective of updating and raising the levels of client protection, in line with this norm, but ensuring the prevalence of sectoral regulation. Thus, the material requirements that must be reached by customer service services in the financial sector are raised, but taking into consideration the particularities of the same.

At the sectoral level, the articulation of the financial consumer protection system relies on two complementary levels: the first based on customer service services, a first level of defense, which is reinforced materially and formally with the modification collected in this law, and a second level based on the complaint services of sectoral supervisors.

In this sense, the nature of incidents and inquiries in the financial sector makes it necessary to particularize their treatment in customer service services. The extensive network of physical offices and electronic communication means available in the sector allows for a first level of contact with financial users, allowing them, with greater agility, to resolve possible inquiries and incidents related to contracted services. Nevertheless, such resolution might, in certain cases, not be satisfactory for the user, which generates the need to connect that first line of contact with the user with customer service services, which in this sector can also resolve complaints and claims derived from incidents or inquiries not satisfactorily resolved by the office or department that provided the service, thus ensuring maximum protection of consumers. Furthermore, if the request is not attended to or is dismissed, one can go to the complaint services of the Bank of Spain, the National Securities Market Commission, and the General Directorate of Insurance and Pension Funds. These services can indeed resolve directly the inquiries raised by consumers, but of a nature different from that which can be raised by this in the framework of the service provided, as they focus on the applicable norms in matters of transparency and client protection, as well as on the legal channels existing for the exercise of their rights, being of a different nature than those provided for by this law.

Financial exclusion or lack of access to appropriate financial services and products to lead a normal social life is a complex phenomenon in which factors such as the distribution of the population in the territory, its age structure, its socioeconomic characteristics, or the distribution channels of available financial services interrelate. A substantial number of Spanish municipalities lack a bank branch, and on occasion, alternatives for in-person attention are not always available. In other cases, digital and telematic channels do not adapt to the level of familiarity, use, and knowledge of some segments of the population regarding these technologies, practically preventing their use.

In general, available statistical information shows lower digital literacy among older people, those with lower income, and those living in smaller municipalities. These groups are, therefore, the most vulnerable to the lack of access to financial services and financial exclusion.