In Sweden, new legislation is being pushed for regarding complaint handling and corporate customer service. The reason for this is long response times at customer service, long waiting times on the phone, and delays in the processing of submitted complaints. Trade association Kontakta opposes legal regulation.

 

The Swedish government wants to “tighten oversight of corporate service” because company customer service currently sometimes poses an obstacle for consumers who wish to terminate a contract or exercise their rights.

The reason for the tightening of the rules is an investigation by the Swedish consumer agency Konsumentverket into the customer service of Swedish companies. The results, published in 2023, showed that the customer service of Swedish companies exhibited shortcomings. In December 2024, the Swedish government commissioned the agency to analyze the extent to which the current problems are due to a lack of compliance with regulations by companies and to propose measures.

Investigation and advice from the regulator

On 30 April 2025, the agency published the report 'Brister i företagens kundtjänsterThe research is based on an analysis of consumer problems and needs, testing against the legal framework, assessment of business practices, examination of company websites, and an inventory of complaints/reports. Parties such as Svensk Handel, trade association Kontakta, Telekområdgivarna, the Swedish consumer association Sveriges Konsuenter, and organizations for people with disabilities were also consulted.

The report shows, among other things, that a third of the complaints to the regulator regarding customer service are due to consumers having to wait too long for a response when contacting a company's customer service. This can be caused by long waiting times on the phone or by delays in handling a submitted inquiry.

In addition, various Swedish companies do not provide their contact details or do so in a way that makes them difficult to locate. Unlawful demands are also being made regarding cancellations, revocations, or complaints, for example by forcing cancellations by telephone. The report also identifies irrelevant or inadequate responses and a lack of documentation of contact moments as structural problems. These problems led to more than one hundred supervision requests in the period from 2023 to 2024.

Conclusions and recommendations of the supervisory authority

One of the conclusions of the report is that the existing legislation from 2009 is inadequate. There is no designated supervisory responsibility and no sanctions are possible. Konsumentverket also suggests that cancellations should not be more difficult than registrations. In addition, the authority wants to investigate whether new rules are needed for retaining or confirming communication, for example via chat, forms, or telephone.

The Swedish government has adopted the recommendations of Konsumentverket and implemented them into a bill, which was published last month. That legislative proposal states that effective supervision of complaint handling must be tightened. Companies that do not respond to complaints “as soon as possible” and do not expeditiously seek a satisfactory solution should be subject to a binding order with a penalty payment.

Response from trade association Kontakta

Trade association Kontakta also believes that companies falling short in customer service should be able to be dealt with via a court order. “These companies act unethically and irresponsibly; they are siphoning off market share from companies that do adhere to the rules and invest enormous sums in well-functioning customer service,” stated Kontakta in a message on its website.

Kontakta is of the opinion that making agreements with a customer falls within the bounds of freedom, as long as regulations are complied with. “If a customer consciously chooses to purchase a service as cheaply as possible in exchange for limited customer service, being well-informed and before entering into an agreement, then legislation should not hinder this.”

However, the trade association considers it “dangerous” if the Swedish consumer agency and the government start imposing requirements on the availability of channels and opening hours. With this stance against new legislation, Kontakta is anticipating developments. The current legislative proposal does not yet contain any new concrete accessibility standards, such as maximum waiting times, mandatory opening hours, mandatory telephone availability, or a mandatory number of channels.

Major problems with poor customer service also occur at public activities.

Furthermore, Kontakta states that the Konsumentverket investigation is based on data from the years 2021-2022, in which a pandemic and an energy crisis with sky-high electricity prices played a role. The few thousand reports of poor customer service would stand in stark contrast to the tens, perhaps even hundreds, of millions of calls to customer service that take place annually. “The vast majority of all companies in Sweden want to do the right thing and comply with the applicable regulations.” Moreover, the trade association questions why only the business sector should be held responsible, while major problems with poor customer service also occur in public activities.

Kontakta prefers to adhere to the “Ethical rules for customer communication and remote customer service” drafted in 2023. The Swedish regulator Konsumentverket approved the content of these ethical rules in December 2022.

Kontakta therefore plans to oppose the bill. “The regulatory burden for Swedish companies has already reached its absolute limit.”

(Ziptone/editors)

Customer Experience, Featured