The CNMC poses as a "mystery customer" to detect obstacles and lack of transparency in the contracting of electricity and gas
The National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) has detected numerous deficiencies in the way in which the attention services of electricity and gas marketers serve customers through the 850 calls and online queries made by their agents posing as false consumers who wanted to contract or change rates, make complaints or withdraw from a contract.
As explained by the regulator, 850 procedures were made through a technique known as “mystery customer”, which consists of posing as real customers who contact an energy marketer to be interested in certain products or services.. Also independent operators such as Alterna Operador Integral, Aldro Energía, Holaluz and Audax Renovables.
However, the CNMC maintains secrecy regarding the identity of the companies that incur one deficiency or another, the main one being “the lack of transparency in consumer information,” as reported in a press release this Tuesday.
Regulated rates and contracts at the moment
Others are “the difficulty or impossibility of contracting regulated market rates” for gas and electricity entirely online, something that was sometimes detected when the “mystery customer” called “by mistake” a free market marketer to ask for a regulated rate.
In the case of telephone contacts, the CNMC detected “insufficient pre-contractual information” in several marketers and “contracting during the call itself”, which prevents having sufficient time to study the offer in detail.. Also, “insufficient preparation of commercial agents.”
When it came to making a claim or requesting cancellation of a contract, the most common deficiency is “excessive telephone waiting times” in this type of requests, in addition to the fact that one of the marketers investigated did not even have telephone channel to contact her.
What other regulated energy marketers do not have is a website or a way to contact them on the Internet, denounces the CNMC, whose report reflects that in the online sphere it was common for their agents to have an easy time “finding basic contract data on the web pages.” of the marketers”.
After detecting these deficiencies in customer service for electricity and gas supplies, the CNMC will communicate them to the affected companies and check whether they have put in place “the corresponding corrective measures.”
In general terms, it proposes two regulatory changes, to oblige regulated marketers to have an Internet channel in which this type of tariff can be fully contracted, both for gas and electricity, and that marketers are also obliged to “record the entire commercial call”, whether the client calls or the company calls, to include pre-contractual information with the basic characteristics of the offer.