Oxford University conference. 18-19 April 2016.
Henri DOLIVIER. Executive Officer of the French Telecom mediation.

Good morning,

I will be presenting your our mediation system and the results of the survey we conducted among consumers who used the French telecom mediator but, before that, I wish to thank Dr. Naomi Creutzfeld for allowing me to take part in the study, as well as the representative of the French Energy mediation FrédériqueCoffre for our collaboration in preparing this survey.

Our Telecom Mediation is unique in terms of age and organisation. It was created in 2003as a result of private investments from major French Telecom operators and it constitutes asector mediator. No other Mediator in France intervenes in the Telecom sector. The Telecom Mediation was organised in the legal form of an association with the sole aim of putting human and material resources at the disposal of an Ombudsman.
Since its inception, our mediation has had five mediators who acted as consultants in order to ensure impartiality. Our current Ombudsman, Mrs Claire Mialaret, has just recently taken office. They have all worked as senior judges and some have also had important roles in the private sector before becoming mediators. To assist in this task, the Ombudsman is assisted by eight lawyers, two assistants and an executive officer.
After 12 years, telecom Mediation brings together all the telecommunication operators in France but also from abroad. We have recently extended it to industries besides telecom (directories and Satellite TV). It has recently obtained the Consumer Ombudsman title in France and is part of one of the first Mediations on the European Union list for the treatment of cross-border disputes.

Since its inception, Electronic Mediation has conducted over 30,000 mediations. In 2015alone, nearly 10,000mediations requests were made to the Ombudsman and more than 3000 mediations were processed by the mediation system and its staff.
The quality of mediations that have been conducted are recognised by both consumers and professionals. 98% of consumers and 99% of professionals followed the mediator's judgment.

After a few words about our mediation, let's now focus more specifically on the study that we conducted jointly with Dr. Naomi Creutzfeld. I'll talk briefly about the results of the survey conducted among consumers who have used the service and the conclusions we can draw from the study.

In 2014-2015, we conducted a study among users on two occasions. One in October 2014,and the second in February 2015.

In total, 475 users were asked to respond. 171 Responded.Which is a good response rate of 36%.
67% were contacted by mail. 33% received e-mail inviting them to respond online on a website.
The questionnaire included 33 questions on five main topics: consumer experience before contacting the Ombudsman, their first contact with the Office of the Ombudsman, their experience in mediation, the result of their mediation and their general opinion of the Mediator.

The results of the survey were very positive and we have learnt a lot from this.

  • 81% of users are satisfied with the telecom mediator.
  • Nearly 88% would recommend the telecom mediator for a similar situation.
  • 63% found the Mediator's opinion to be fair and impartial.

The first observation I draw from this survey is sociological: the proportion of men and women who responded is almost 50% each. Also, most of them are either pensioners or executives. They make up nearly 50% of users who complained to the Ombudsman.

The second conclusion relates to how they found out about the service. Most consumers were made aware of the service through the Internet (41%). Few of them were informed by their service telecom provider(19%). We must therefore maintain our presence on the web by updating and upgrading our current site. We should also raise awareness among professionals so they can better inform their clients.

Finally, this survey confirms our decision in 2015 regarding the mediation processing time. Previously, we suggested two months' processing time. We changed to three months in 2015 in order to comply with the EU ADR Directive.
This survey shows that we already respect the consumer expectation, since 64% of consumers expected a processing time of 1 to 3 months.

In conclusion, this study shows that consumer information available in France should be greatly improved.
Besides the satisfaction users expressed in this survey, what is also important to mention is the significant response rate we had. My personal analysis is that consumers who have been using our mediation service really wanted to express their satisfaction and confidence in an alternative device that allowed them to solve their dispute. An alternative device they probably did not know about before and used for the first time.

Again, I would like to thank Dr. Naomi Creutzfeld for this study and for including me in it. This study is very informative for all of us. It will certainly influence our actions and decisions in the months and years to come so we can better inform consumers about our service and encourage its use in mediation.

Thank you for your attention. Enjoy the rest of the conference.

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