- There's no current direct acess to customer care in english if it hasn't been configured by the sales service in firts place (It is possible that, given the small percentage of customers in other languages, salespeople may not even know that this option exists).
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Your only chance is to call 1004 and say "english" over and over, everytime you're asked a question. Voice-over will repeat itself a few times, but after two minutes of struggle someone who speaks english will pick the phone.
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Theoretically the next time you call the 1004 phone voice-over should already be configured to answer in English. The first time you are attended in English, you are also asked if you want to be attended in this language. Be careful because if you say another option the voice-over will be reconfigured in Spanish.
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This procedure is valid for English, German and Arabic.
Please note that in 2019/2020 Movistar is changing all its systems and internal operations, and this may be subject to change.
If you think this is no longer correct, please let me know in the comments.
Key info to have at hand
Now, since Movistar is going through this changes, employees are experiencing problems to retrieve customer information. If you want to make the process easier make sure:
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To have you NIE or identification number associated with you contract at hand. It typically comes in your bills or your contract. This is enough to get all customer info most of the times.
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If that's not possible, or such info is not accesible at the moment, provide at least you mobile phone number, if you're calling about issues with such service, or landline number for issues with landline phone, fiber or DSL.
What if you have technical issues
1002 is the tech service number for Movistar, and although some agents may speak English, they are discouraged from doing so, on the grounds that this does not create expectations of customers, who may call back waiting for an agent to attend them in English. In this case, you're expected to follow the above procedure and a bilingual agent will either act as intermediary between you and the 1002 agent or open an issue himself without pre-diagnosys.
How long will it take my problem to be solved?
Movistar estimates that on average the resolution time is less than 48h.
It is actually an answer that all operators have to mask an unsatisfactory reality for customers: It is impossible to know.
It will depend on what type of problem it is, the volume of work that the technicians in your area have (if it is a problem with your fiber/dsl connection), if it is a problem that involves third parties (for example, not all mobile antennas are owned by Movistar), etc. etc. There are too many factors.
In theory, after 48h the customer has the right to claim, and generally the commercial service refunds the equivalent amount of time during which there was no service.
In Spain, moreover, if after one month of the complaint filed through the company's mechanisms, the customer is not satisfied with the response, he can turn to consumer protection agencies. In Spain this is managed by the autonomous communities and not by the central government, so you would have to search in google something similar to:
cataluña consumo
galicia consumo
Unfortunately, in many cases these websites are only available in Spanish and in the local language, not in English. However google maps usually show the location of their offices, and there they should be able to help you.
From personal experience I can say that these services do work (Your complaint has to be substantiated, otherwise they will deny it).
Movistar customer service numbers
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1004 -> General customer service number
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1002 -> Technical customer service number
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comunidad.movistar.es -> Customer service forums
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Movistar Twitter account -> Probably the easiest way to get customer service in english