Notes · AI, data and rules
The three-minute rule binds a few. The part that binds you passed almost unnoticed.
From 28 December 2026, large companies in Spain must put customers through to a person within three minutes. But the same law rewrote Spain’s consumer protection act for every other business, and that change is already in force.
On a Saturday night, a patient sends her clinic in Marbella a WhatsApp message complaining about an invoice. An automated assistant replies, quickly and politely, explains the items billed and wishes her a good weekend. Nobody at the clinic reads the conversation until Tuesday. Can a clinic leave a complaint to a machine? How long does it have to answer? The answer depends on two pieces of Spanish law, and most of what has been written about it looks at only one.
The law everyone talks about.
Law 10/2025 on customer service was published in Spain’s Official Gazette on 27 December 2025 and came into force the next day. Companies within its scope have twelve months to comply: until 28 December 2026.
It applies to two groups. The first is basic services: water, energy, transport, post, telecoms and financial services. The second is any company selling to consumers in Spain, wherever it is established, that in the previous financial year employed at least 250 people, had turnover above €50 million or a balance sheet above €43 million. The test is applied to the company alone or to its group. Uría Menéndez, one of Spain’s largest law firms, reads those thresholds as alternatives: meeting one is enough.
For companies inside it, the requirements are specific. Automated answering may not be the only channel. A bot may handle the conversation, but it must offer a person from the start and at any point. That person gives their name at the outset, and 95 % of those who ask for one must reach them within three minutes on average. Complaints are resolved within fifteen working days, and service quality is audited every year and published on the website.
Who it reaches in these sectors.
In the sectors I work with, it reaches the large fertility and private hospital groups, hotel chains and big estate agency networks operating in Spain. The detail most often missed is the group. A forty-person clinic owned by a group of a thousand counts as the group. So does a boutique hotel bought by a chain. And because the law covers companies established in any country, a Swiss or British group selling to consumers in Spain is not outside it by default.
The independent clinic, the family-run hotel and the luxury agency with fifteen advisers fall outside. Many of them read the news, did the arithmetic and relaxed. That is a mistake, because of what comes next.
The duty to offer a person is not new. It is almost twenty years old.
The part that applies to you.
In a final provision that hardly anyone quotes, the same law amended article 21 of Spain’s general consumer protection act. That article has no thresholds: it applies to every business that serves consumers in Spain, whatever its size. And the amendment is already in force. This is what it says now:
- A person, since 2007. If your customer service uses the phone or electronic channels, it must guarantee direct personal attention. Technical tools are a complement. That sentence has been in the act since its first version in 2007. Law 10/2025 adds the three minutes for large companies. The basic duty already applied to everyone.
- Fifteen days to answer. The act used to allow a month to reply to a complaint. It now allows fifteen days from the moment it is filed.
- The channel where it all started. Complaint channels must include, at a minimum, the one through which the relationship began, as well as post, phone and an electronic channel. If the patient first came through WhatsApp, or the client through Instagram, that channel takes complaints too.
- A reference number and a receipt. Anyone who complains is entitled to a reference code and a written receipt, on paper or another durable medium.
- A free phone line for healthcare. The same article treats healthcare as a basic service of general interest, and providers must have a free consumer phone line. This is not new, but the amendment restates it.
Where it breaks in practice.
Go back to Saturday’s patient. The assistant is not the problem; it can handle routine questions well. The problem is that it does not recognise a complaint, does not offer a person, does not issue a reference number and does not record the date. The fifteen days started on Saturday, and the clinic finds out on Tuesday.
This is not an AI failure. It is a design failure, and the same one sits behind many web forms that feed an inbox nobody checks and many phone menus that never let you ask for a person. At the top of the market it also carries a cost the law does not measure: a client who pays a great deal expects to be treated as someone, not as a ticket.
My position is simple: good automation is not the kind that avoids people, but the kind that decides when they are needed. A well-designed assistant answers opening hours, indicative prices and paperwork. When it detects a complaint, a medical question or an upset client, it offers a person, issues a reference number, records the date and alerts the team with a summary. That meets the law and, above all, looks after the client.
Before 28 December.
- This week
List your channels
Every place where a client first contacts you: web form, email, phone, WhatsApp, social media, portals. Each one must accept complaints.
- This month
Test your own assistant
Write a complaint the way a client would. Check that a person is offered from the start and that the conversation reaches someone with a name.
- Before December
Put a clock on every complaint
Reference code, receipt, date received and an internal alert before the fifteen days run out.
- If you are part of a group
Check whether Law 10/2025 reaches you
With your lawyer, using the group’s figures, not just the company’s. If it does, plan the three minutes, the annual audit and the home page.
- If you provide healthcare
Check the phone line
Confirm with your adviser that your customer number meets the free-of-charge requirement.
This week, be a customer of your own business. File a small complaint through the channel you watch least, the form in the footer or the email address on your invoices, and note the time.
Then count two things: how long it took for someone to answer and how many times you had to repeat the problem. If the result surprises you, think about how many customers have already checked it before you, without telling you.
If you would like me to review your channels, your website and your automations with these rules in mind, start with the Strategic Diagnostic. The legal reading of your case is a matter for your lawyer.