Communicating Effectively with Customers
Making sure everyone gets the message
Playbook
Communicating with customers
Before customers can buy anything from your business, they need to understand what is for sale. In fact, most people won’t patronize a business if they can’t figure out what is being offered. Communication about, from, and with your business must be clear for people with and without disabilities.
Any customer communication can cause a simple misunderstanding, but for customers with disabilities, communications barriers can prevent meaningful communication. It is important to recognize this potential issue and to learn how to deal with it.
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” —commonly attributed to George Bernard Shaw.
Considering communication disabilities
To communicate with all your customers, you may need to think through how you will communicate with people who have a communication disability. Communication disabilities are related to hearing, vision, or speech. Your business should be prepared to prevent communication barriers based on spoken interaction, printed materials, websites and electronic communications, and video communications.
Effective communication requirements
A business is required to ensure that people with communication disabilities have an equal opportunity to access the business’s goods and services. This is known as effective communication. Effective communication applies to programs and services of a business like the job application process, correspondence, customer service, paying bills, and other interactions to access goods and services.
If you offer goods or services over your website, make sure that the site is accessible to all your customers. Learn more about accessible websites in What about my website?, in Tool 9.
Under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a business may need to provide an auxiliary aid or service to make communication as clear and understandable for the individual with a disability as it is for someone without a disability. Both parties must be able to clearly understand and communicate with one another. Communication is both receiving (receptive) and sending (expressive).
What is an auxiliary aid or service?
An auxiliary aid or service is a device or service that makes effective communication possible. It provides additional help to facilitate the communication with someone who has a communication disability in order to improve communication or access.
The proper auxiliary aid or service depends on the nature of an individual’s disability and the circumstances surrounding the communication. To be effective, auxiliary aids and services must be provided in accessible formats, in a timely manner, and in such a way as to protect the privacy and independence of the individual with a disability.
Examples of auxiliary aids and services
- For someone who is Deaf or hard-of-hearing: A qualified sign language interpreter, short written exchanges using paper and pen or text messages, closed captioning, transcription services, assistive listening devices, video remote interpreting. Also, for someone who is deaf-blind, a tactile interpreter.
- For a person with a vision-related disability: Information in braille, large print, or accessible electronic format. Also, an audio description; a qualified reader; and physical guidance.
- For those with speech disabilities: Writing materials, extra time to communicate, use of a communication board, and a speech-to-speech transliterator (a person trained to recognize unclear speech and repeat it clearly).
Deciding on the auxiliary aid or service
The appropriate auxiliary aid or service will depend on the situation. Ultimately, the business gets to decide what auxiliary aid or service will be used to facilitate communication, but it must be effective. A business, however, should consider the input of the person with the communication disability in reaching the correct choice.
A business does not need to provide an auxiliary aid or service that would be an undue burden (significant difficulty or expense) or that would fundamentally alter the nature of its goods and services. For example, a theater company would not need to slow down the action on stage to accommodate audio description being provided to a person who is blind.
When a business is considering how to offer effective communication, it must look at the whole picture. It should consider the type of communication, the individual’s preferred way of communicating, the number of people involved, the duration and complexity of what is being communicated, the individual’s normal method of communicating, and the importance of what is being shared. For example, an individual who is Deaf may require a sign language interpreter to discuss a medical diagnosis with their doctor. However, if the same individual were stopping in their doctor’s office to pay a bill and leave, then communicating by written notes would be appropriate.
The standard for achieving effective communication is determined based on the outcome of the communication.
Who picks up the bill?
Often there is no cost to providing effective communication, but at times it will cost money. When that happens, it is the responsibility of the business or nonprofit to cover the expense. Passing along the cost of an auxiliary aid or service to the customer is called a surcharge. This is prohibited by the ADA.
There are some tax incentives to help businesses bear the expense of auxiliary aids or services. It is also good practice to build the cost of providing auxiliary aids and services into an annual budget so that funds can be designated ahead of time for the purpose.