With about 60 million Americans reporting some sort of disability—26% of the population according to the CDC—no responsible business owner can afford to ignore this sizable and diverse market. In fact, the America Institutes for Research reports that this sizable population boasts a total after-tax disposable income of $490 billion and a discretionary income of $21 billion. In order to serve this market properly and subsequently retain a passionate and loyal customer base, it is necessary to make all facets of business as accessible as possible, first and foremost being customer service.
Make the portal into customer service obvious
The point of entry for customer service options should be prominent, not buried within the site, at the bottom of a page, or require multiple steps/clicks to find and access. Many people visit a website specifically to seek customer service help, yet often it takes some digging to find, so burying it does nobody any favors. Accordingly, the entry point into customer service should be loud and proud with all contact options easy to find and labeled consistently throughout the site. Individuals who use screen readers to access the internet in particular experience a laborious and tedious process attempting to find customer service options, creating a frustrating experience right from the start. But making customer service options prominent and clear can create a more seamless experience for all customers.
To that end, it would be helpful to test your customer service portal with screen readers and text enlargers. To facilitate easier usage with such tools, some general best practices are to label buttons with helpful text, provide alternative text for images, and avoid the use of Flash.
Provide multiple and comprehensive methods for contact
Most people have a preference for how they conduct customer service interactions: some prefer automated phone systems or perhaps a text chat while many prefer the voice of a real human on the phone. For that reason, your customer interface should already provide a variety of options.
But what is important to remember regarding disability is that for many of these individuals, their communication choice is not a preference but a requirement. With that in mind, incorporating as many communication options as possible is the best way to reach customers who require accessibility. To do this, consider all possible support needs and seek to provide a wide range of options to meet those needs. For example, some customers may communicate best by lip-reading, in which case video chat may need to be on your customer service menu.
Make it simple to access help from a real human
If someone seeking customer service is lucky enough to get on a service call, often they end up interacting with an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. Imagine how frustrating IVRs can be for an average person, multiply that frustration exponentially, and you might be able to understand what IVR experiences are like for those with hearing difficulties or learning disabilities like dyscalculia or dyslexia. IVRs simply aren’t able to serve everyone. They tend to be temperamental, sensitive to sounds, and unintuitive. But the intuition and nuance that IVRs lack can easily be found in real human interaction. Live person-to-person customer service representatives can understand the problems a person with a disability might be facing and can accommodate their needs more efficiently. As such, accessing a real human should be simple and offered as the first option, not the last.
Train customer service representatives in accessibility best practices
One approach to making customer service more accessible is to create a designated team that is trained to deal with unique service-related situations, including accommodations that customers with disabilities may require − an Accessibility Geek Squad, for example. A team with specialized knowledge provides top-tier specialized help.
That being said, it’s also important that all Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) be trained with some basic knowledge about accessibility and how to field concerns. At a minimum, CSRs should be trained to understand the ways people with disabilities may be accessing the site—like with assistive technology, and what that experience is like for them—in order to troubleshoot use and access.
In addition to technical training, there is also quite a bit of emotional training required for CSRs to be able to serve disabled customers most effectively. Because it’s not always immediately obvious what a customer’s needs are or even if they have a disability, patience, understanding, and empathy are required in order to assess a customer’s needs right from the start. Recruiting staff that already demonstrate certain qualities—respect for all, warmth, courtesy, patience, and a genuine desire to help—is a great start. The next step would be advanced training that hones those skills, creating representatives who do not get frustrated easily, who have the patience to take all the time necessary to understand the customer’s needs. Patience, empathy, and respect go a long way in any customer service situation, especially when accessibility is involved.
Never stop seeking feedback
As with all aspects of business, it’s important to continue to be open to feedback. Actively seek it out! While you may think you’ve successfully checked all the boxes regarding accessibility, there’s always room for improvement, especially as technology and people’s needs change. Luckily, customers are willing to tell you what they need, but only if you’re willing to listen. Customer service surveys are a great tool for this, and designing surveys specifically related to accessibility is a great way to make sure every customer is getting everything they need in the most seamless manner possible.
True accessibility in customer service begins by acknowledging that not everyone experiences the internet or indeed the world at large in the same way, and if you continuously keep that in mind, you can offer a superior customer service experience that meets everyone’s needs.
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