BRC offers cautious welcome to Consumer Advocate
Tue, 07 Jul 2009
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has backed the decision to create a new Consumer Advocate, providing the post is genuinely intended to improve customers' understanding of their rights.
According to the BRC, an effective advocate could also help retailers by providing customers with the information they need to resolve problems as efficiently as possible.
However, the forum claimed that the post holder should be given an "unambiguously independent" status and the creation of the new post should be followed by a rationalisation of the "confusing" range of consumer education bodies.
Such bodies include the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Office of Fair Trading and Trading Standards, the BRC said.
BRC director general Stephen Robertson said: "Retailers strive to satisfy their customers. They are the lifeblood of the industry.
Responsible retailers go well beyond the legal minimum to meet customers' needs and put things right if they go wrong.
"A Consumer Advocate will only be worthwhile if it actually improves customer education and advice. It must not be just a gesture."
He claimed that most consumer problems are sorted out face-to-face in-store but improving access to the other options that already exist is "good for customers and retailers" when it leads to a faster resolution.
Plans for a Consumer Advocate were outlined in a government white paper published last week.
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