Every Customer Counts – access, dignity and choice

‘Every Customer Counts – promoting accessible service’ aims to support and encourage retailers and other business owners to assess the accessibility of their services and premises from the point of view of someone with a disability. It will give business owners an insight into what it is like for someone with impaired hearing or vision coming into their premises, and help them and their staff deal with someone with a learning disability or a mental health problem. 
 

Eileen Lavery, Head of the Commission’s Advice & Compliance and Legal Division, commented: “’Every Customer Counts’ has a serious purpose for businesses as well as for disabled people. Disabled people make up a sizeable share of the population in Northern Ireland, so any business that excludes them is missing out on their custom and goodwill.
 

“Every business has a legal duty to take reasonable steps to ensure that disabled people can access their services but there are many other reasons why you should stop and consider how accessible your business currently is.

“You can widen your customer base, build customer loyalty and plan ahead for the future. Official population projections suggest that by 2022 – just eight years away – while the population aged under 65 will have grown by 1.5%, the population aged 65 or more will rise by 26%.
 

“Reasonable adjustments should aim to provide equality in service provision for everyone, with the same level of access, dignity and choice. This doesn’t have to mean massive physical changes. Small changes to the way you work, how you present information and your premises can have a big impact on your customer numbers.  Making sure that your staff can provide great customer service to disabled people often makes the biggest difference of all.”
 

“The aim of Every Customer Counts is to encourage businesses to do something to improve their service to disabled people.  While we are asking people to register commitment to the idea, we are here to help them achieve improvements.”
 

All the Equality Commission’s ‘Every Customer Counts’ advice, documents and useful links are now available online.