Accessibility is one of the most important features of good customer service, but many businesses are still unsure what it means and how it applies to them.
In short, accessibility means ensuring that everybody can engage with your customer service, regardless of whether they have disabilities of any kind. It also applies to people from different backgrounds too. If your customer service doesn’t cater to everybody, you risk alienating people and damaging your brand reputation. The general consumer is more aware of accessibility issues than they were in the past, even if they don’t apply to them. As a business, it’s important that you make it a priority.
What Are The Benefits Of Accessible Customer Service?
There are numerous reasons why businesses should invest in accessible customer service. The most obvious one is that you need to cater to all potential customers. If a visually impaired person, for example, is unable to navigate the live chat on your website, for example, it’s unlikely that they will come back. If somebody in a wheelchair comes to your building and there is not a convenient entrance for them, you’ve lost that customer for good. Accessibility means that anybody can become a customer, no matter their background.
Accessible customer service also protects your brand reputation. Consumers want to deal with companies that take corporate social responsibility seriously. If a business doesn’t consider the needs of those with disabilities or people from different social and economic backgrounds, that doesn’t look great.
Ultimately, it comes back to the core aim of customer service; to make sure that the customer is provided for and their problems are resolved. You can’t do that without making your customer service operation accessible to all.
How Accessible Is Your Customer Service?
You may think that your customer service is accessible, but there are probably things that you could do better. Start by looking at your website. Does it support text to speech options for the visually impaired? Are the layout and color schemes simple enough to read? Do you rely on audio content that people with hearing issues will struggle with?
Next, think about your call center operation. You will likely have some customers that don’t speak English as a first language. So, you need to accommodate them by offering a multilingual phone service. Services like GSA Business Development help companies create more accessible customer service operations in an increasingly globalized world.
Finally, you must ensure that your office space and any retail locations (if applicable) are accessible for everybody. Installing ramps and lifts at main entrances makes it easy for people to enter the building. Businesses often make the mistake of making secondary entrances accessible, but this makes valued customers feel excluded.
Make Meaningful Change Today
Accessibility isn’t just some buzzword that you can ignore. Without it, your customer service operation excludes people that could become long-term customers. But by making it a priority, you can make sure that everybody, no matter what their background is, can have their needs met by your business.