In the mid-’90s, I saw an TV ad for hearing aids. The most ironic part was this concluding screen:
If you are the target audience of this ad, then you have difficulty hearing. Lest I remind you, using the telephone requires ample hearing capabilities. So for the prospective customer to go through a challenging experience as their first engagement is less than desirable.
You Can’t Hear? Give us a Call.
I’ve lived this experience as a deaf person. I have a cochlear implant that comes with a processor to help me hear. It’s how I communicate day-to-day. and one day they stopped working. I could not hear at all — I went “offline” so to speak. My first course of action was to get a replacement from the manufacturer, ASAP. I went to their website and found the “contact us” link, and typed in a message asking for help securing a replacement.
The response? An e-mail response that contained the following text:
We are sorry to hear your processor is broken. Please call customer service at 1-800-….
I’ll let that sink in for a minute.
This company is in the business of providing its customers with hearing through their products, the cochlear implant processors.
Evidently they did not consider the customer experience for when a product breaks, leaving the customer without access to sound.
This was not even five years ago when it happened. The infomercial referenced above from the ’90s is still the reality for many deaf and hard of hearing people in 2019.
Really? Know Your Audience
This launched me into taking a look at how “Contact Us” sections of websites are set up; are they truly designed to offer support? Or is it leading to further frustration? Or even potential embarrassment over insensitivity towards their customers?
A few other examples I found where “contact us” neglected to consider real users:
- A speech and language services website offers a telephone call as the only means of “Contact Us.” This is concerning because if the person has a speech disorder, then articulating over the phone is likely to be a challenging or anxious experience.
- An organization serving individuals with neurological conditions has the telephone number typed out, but not formatted as a link on a mobile device. This requires the user who may lack fine motor control to focus efforts on inputting the telephone number keys.
- A website feedback form, except the form isn’t accessible to the users. A common issue, for example, is the absence of form field labels that communicate to screen-readers purpose of a field. As a consequence, the feedback the site is getting is not representative of all users. Alarmingly, in the absence of accessibility feedback, the organization may presume there are no accessibility issues when the feedback system in itself is flawed.
Offer Multiple Engagement Avenues
What can we do to better help our clients serve their customers, regardless of ability? We can help them think through the entire “contact us” experience. We can help our clients understand to not assume how people prefer to communicate. For example, just because I am deaf does not mean American Sign Language is my preferred method of communication or that I am fluent in this visual language.
But we can encourage our clients to offer a broad range of contact us options and to also be consistent.
Chatbots
As an example, a site may include a chatbot. An alternative way to using a telephone to call. Great! Better access to “real-time” support, right? There are a couple of types of chatbots; one is powered by AI and may lead a user to a support site filtered down to a support issue resolution, and the other may be a human on the other side as a customer service representative.
The danger to the first option is the user isn’t immediately aware of which ‘type’ of Chatbot they will be interacting with until the first few exchanges. Once they discover it is an AI version, they run the risk of facing another inaccessible experience once the bot has ended its query without a resolution, often saying
“I’m sorry, I cannot help you. Would you like me to call support for you?”
As a deaf user who may not prefer the telephone, they are misled down what started off promising as an accessible experience, to a “dead end” that cuts off the support experience due to inaccessible options.
Multiple Experience Paths
A solution to this would be to offer multiple experience paths:
- A phone call
- Submit a Message / Help Ticket
- Route to a live agent chat
So, be consistent. Don’t change communication method mid-flight. And always offer a human in the end, and best of all, offer multiple options for help:
Telephone
Telephone is probably the most common way to handle customer service inquiries. In recent years, we’ve heard phone menus get more advanced and complex, also with a possible artificial intelligence bot on the other end. The challenge with that is it requires clear speech by the caller for the bot to process the commands.
Too often have I been caught in an endless loop because the robot did not understand my speech patterns. (I have often been asked if I’m from England — so I’d gather people with an accent also face similar trials as I do.) There needs to be a “escape button” equivalent, that allows you to get out of the endless loop of, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that. Can you please repeat?”
Please make the final menu option a chance to go straight to customer service. Too often have I been caught in an endless loop because the robot did not understand my speech patterns on my responses that took me down the path to the right ‘person.’ It is more often than not, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that. Can you please repeat?” For a good 10 minutes before giving up and hanging up.
Video Chat
Offer video chat options to connect with a support agent in addition to telephone for those who need visual access. Comcast recently announced on December 3, 2019, that they will offer American Sign Language support through their ASL Support Center. This provides direct access for those who are reliant on American Sign Language to communicate with a support agent using their primary language. Bravo, Comcast! (Source, Forbes) Shortly after, on Dec 9, Google Accessibility announced they will also support Video Conferencing in American Sign Language. (Source, Communication Services for the Deaf).
Chatbot or Live Chat
As mentioned before, provide clear and consistent pathways. If it starts off with AI, and the “end” requires a human, provide that even if it’s offering both a human behind a telephone number or continuing in the chat window with an actual human picking up the conversation.
Form Messaging & E-mails
Offering users with the option of submitting a written inquiry via a message form, or an email is also a great way to increase the accessibility of customer service. Canned should responses be automated upon receipt, to ensure that further inquiry options are accessible. Be sensitive to the customers and follow that communication ‘mode.’ If a customer starts off with a message, continue that format until the customer offers a different change in modality. (Let the customer lead, otherwise presuming that a customer can pick up the phone may diminish their experience. It shouldn’t be an option (or preference) pushed upon them.
The frequent customer service slogan, “The customer is always right.” goes beyond a service or merchandise dispute, but that it also includes broadening the communication pathways. Your communication preference may not always be right for the customer. It’s better to offer a broad range of communication access options so that you can hear from all of your customers, not just a subset of those without needs.
