INTRODUCTION

Designing consumer complaint

management by regulation authorities

Because of the particularities of the water sector, which leads to natural monopolistic operators, there is an increased importance of consumer protection by the regulation authorities, alongside the

need for tighter legal framework for consumer contracts and for making access to justice easier. The recent Portuguese law regarding regulation authorities, issued in 28th of August 2013(1),

reinforced the task of consumer protection on behalf of those authorities.

Portuguese legislation states, since 2005, that all water service operators should have a complaint book for consumer complaints, which should be sent, with the operators' response, to the Water

and Waste Services Regulation Authority (ERSAR) for analysis. This is the main source of consumers' complaints received and analyzed by this regulatory authority.

• Consumer protection and complaint analysis is especially important in the water utilities

because of its naturally monopolistic market structure.

• Even though the legal framework of the regulation authorities can give them high range

of discretion in regard to how they should manage the complaints, the functions and

output of the complaint analysis should be clearly defined, as well as the results of its

appreciation, and have its results published.

CONCLUSIONS

inspiring change

(1) Law n.º 67/2013

ERSAR, Annual Report on Water and Waste Services in Portugal (2012)

www.iwahq.org

Ana Cristina Aleixo, cristina.aleixo@ersar.pt

Pedro Ribeiro

Complaint appreciation and publication of results

The analysis of the complaints implies an appreciation or conclusion about its merit, which

can have the following final classifications:

If through the analysis of the complaint there is no apparent violation of the quality of

service or contractual law neither the commitment of a contravention, the complaint should

be deemed unjustified.

When it is concluded that a complaint is well-founded in respect to objective rules, then it

should be classified as justified in terms of law. In such cases it is possible to further

differentiate whether the operator has voluntarily solved the complaint before regulatory

intervention or only after, complying or not complying with the decision/recommendation.

If the conclusion of the appreciation is that the complaint about the quality of service, but

without violation of objective rules, was well-founded, it should be classified as justified in

terms of quality of service.

In other often cases, when the response to the complaint by the operator brings evidence

that the problem was solved, thus the classification should be justified but voluntarily

solved.

The cases where it was not possible, using the regulation authorities' procedures, safe

and clearly conclude on the merit, the complaint ought to be considered inconclusive.

The data resulting from such final classifications is a valuable tool to assess the operators

behavior handling complaints.

Complaints received in ERSAR

The task of complaint analysis is to fulfill four main distinct roles: complaints are an input received

from the consumer regarding the quality of the service. They provide through their appreciation an

instrument for legal protection of the consumers. They are a source of information for inspections

and, lastly, to diagnose the need for better legislation.

Complaints may regard aspects of the service that are objectively regulated by law about which a

violation can be clearly assessed, and result in the intervention of the regulation authority, which can

be a definitive decision or a recommendation depending on the powers it is entitled, fulfilling in either

cases the role of legal protection for consumers and their right of access to justice. If the regulator

has no powers to definitely decide on the complaint, it can issue a recommendation to the operator,

giving legal opinion on the matter, transmitting it also to the consumer along with information on what

judicial or alternative dispute resolution means are available for a definitive settlement of the dispute.

The complaints carrying questions of law, besides accounting for the evaluation of quality of service,

should be registered for future use in similar complaint-cases and even published if the operator

continues with its unlawful conduct.

Functions and output of complaint analysis

Procedures applicable to complaints from users

Telephone, letter, e-mail, … Letter, e-mail, website ERSAR Complaints Book

Operators ERSAR

Users Users

or… or…

!!!

Users

Justice of the Peace

Evolution of Complaints

Figure 1 – This figure shows the number of complaints received by ERSAR from 2005 to

2013.

Figure 2 – This figure shows the percentage of complaints received by ERSAR

according to the management model

Complaints received in ERSAR

Figure 1

Figure 2

The distribution of complaints received by ERSAR in 2013 by subject