It’s great that you’re committed to making your business more accessible! Now it’s time to let the world know.
An important part of being an accessible business is letting your team, clients, customers, investors, network (and the world!) know about the commitment that your organisation has made to being accessible.
We suggest using as many avenues to communicate this commitment as possible. It's a great way to ensure that your disabled and access customers feel welcomed and valued, and it also fosters brand loyalty with the increasing number of consumers who are shopping with their values.
Here are our top tips on how to get started.
Having an accessibility page on your website is a great way for guests to know what to expect when visiting your premises. It should include accessibility information about your facilities, including reception, bathrooms, wheelchair accessibility, parking, drop-off zones, public transport-and any other useful information you can think of. You can also talk about your website’s accessibility here.
Don’t be discouraged if your facilities are not as accessible as you would like – transparency builds trust and loyalty. You can talk a bit about your plans to advance accessibility too.
Here's a great example of an accessibility page from one of our clients, Auckland Botanic Gardens.
It’s a great idea to have a statement about your commitment to accessibility on your website. This could be on your accessibility-page, your about-page, or policies-page. An accessibility statement is a public statement about why you are on this journey. It’s also a great place to explain why your choice of language.
This is an opportunity to be transparent and connect with the 1 in 4 New Zealanders who identify as disabled, their whānau, and the significant number of consumers who consider values when buying.
Here's a great example of an accessibility statement from our clients, Auckland Live.
An important step in communicating your commitment to accessibility is deciding what language resonates with your brand and organisation’s values. Will you use person-first language, identity-first language, or a mixture of the two?
Both ‘disabled person’ (identity first) and 'person with a disability’ (person first) are generally accepted by the community, so have a conversation within your organisation about what feels most genuine, and then communicate that to your stakeholders.
(But remember that it's really important to listen to what language individuals prefer, as personal opinions will differ.)
Other terms are considered offensive and should not be used. Avoid terms that perpetrate stereotypes or make people sound like objects of pity, such as ‘suffers from’ (condition), or ‘is confined to’ a (mobility aid).
To see an example, we talk about the language we use over on our accessibility statement.
Asking for feedback is a great way to show your commitment is genuine. It enables you to involve the access and disabled communities, and become aware of accessibility issues you may not have come across otherwise.
Ensure you have a couple of different methods for collecting feedback, such as contact form, email, and phone number.
We recommend having a dedicated accessibility email for people to send their questions and queries to. This could also be a great opportunity to gather testimonials to use in your communications, such as for social media!
Some websites allow you to choose your language, although many browsers can automatically translate websites or utilise services such as Google Translate. For NZSL, this is trickier, as it is not a written language.
For this reason, we recommend getting the key information on your website translated into NZSL in a video you can embed on to your website. You can also do this with your newsletters and events. It will go a long way in ensuring Deaf and Hard of Hearing people can interact with your business, as not every Deaf person speaks or reads English. And it's a great way to show the community that you value and welcome them into your business.
Communicating your commitment to accessibility will extend your business’ reach and build trust and loyalty with your stakeholders.
And don't forget that communicating in an accessible way is equally important. We also have further tips to help you create accessible documents, and accessible apps and websites. And because social media is such a huge part of business in today’s world, we’ve compiled our top tips for how to ensure that stays accessible too.
Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about how we can support you to write an accessibility page and statement.
A great way for your team to get on the same page around what accessibility means to your organisation, and what language is authentic for your organisation, is to take part in one of our “building accessible culture” workshops.
Our new self-assessment product, the Be. Starter Package covers key aspects of your customer journey, including communications, physical environment, evacuation procedures, customer service and more. Find out more on our Be. Starter page.