Training & Development

The standard is making customer service accessible for people with disabilities.

 

    AODA’s customer service standard is important for businesses to have in mind when creating a policy or a plan to train their staff on how to serve people with disabilities in Ontario.

 

     Ontario’s standard under the act of customer service is now law. This means that the standard applies to all organizations and businesses that provide goods or services and have at least one employee.  It is mandatory that all of the staff who work around and with costumer service policy’s be trained on how to serve these customers with disabilities.

 

     All Public sector organizations that are required to follow the standard must have complied with the standard and have provided the training by January 1, 2010, as this was the date that all Public sector organizations should have been adapted to the change and the law is firmly in place. All other obligated organizations, including private and non-profit, needed to comply by January 1, 2012 as their deadline. From now on, updated training must be provided if policies, practices or procedures for goods or services to people with disabilities change.

 

     Big corporate companies in retail need to follow the AODA standard in order to maintain their dignity and independence. Each retailer should have a set of beliefs or values in which they believe what the importance behind this act is for their company. By following the AODA standard, it shows that the retailer is willing to meet the needs of those customers with disabilities, and help support them by removing any barriers to accessibility and providing them the proper requirements.   

 

 

The following steps will provide you with legal and helpful information in regards to AODA standards and customer service standards for training and developing employees to better serve customers with disabilities .

 

 

 

 

To start, the business with need to have or make a policy that your employees will follow and be trained on that outlines how you will provide goods or services to customer with disabilities. Some helpful things and steps that you should remember while doing this is:

 

• Make a list of what you do every day to provide customer service 

• Identify, remove and prevent potential barriers for people with disabilities

• Document your policy

 

When creating your policy, you must include information on how you will:

 

Consider a persons disability when communicating with them.

• This means preparing your customer service staff to communicate with customers with various types of disability’s and taking into account the different types.

• See section "types" for more details

 

Allow assistive devices. 

• An assistive device is a piece of equipment a person with a disability uses to help them with their daily living

• Consider any hazards to the persons assistive device in the facility if any (ex:oxygen tank) are not suitable for some areas of workplace and should be addressed with

• See section "types" for more details

 

Allow service animals

• If there is a law that prohibits the use of service animals, your workplace and customer service must find a way for the person to access your goods and services.

• Consider what changes you will have to make for adapting a service animal into the environment

• See section "types" for more details

 

Welcome support persons

• Support persons help people with a disability perform daily tasks.

• Decide how you will approach the special situation or services

• Consider what parts of your premises are open to the public

• Let people know if there is an admission fee for a support person

• See section "types" for more details

 

Inform customers when accessible services are temporarily available

• Sometimes under repair for elevators / handicap washroom are out of service. In this case make sure you notify the customer

• Think about and make a list of facilities and services people with disabilities rely on

• Create a template notice in advance and let people know where to find it

• Determine where the notice should be posted

 

Invite customers to provide feedback

• Provide a way for your customers who have disabilities to comment on how you provide assessable customer service

• Determine how you want to receive feedback

• Clarify how you will respond to feedback

• State how you will let customers know about the feedback

 

 

Most if not all retail stores in Canada have implemented a customer with disability policy. By providing the needs to the customer if will better represent the company and improve the experience for the customer. Of course it will be hard to train employees on how to fully understand accommodations for all employees, and thus the reason why there is usually a AODA test that must be passed by all employees before furthering onto the procedures. 

 

 

 

 

Your customer service is the main part of the business and most important when communicating and helping people with disabilities. This means you should be well aware of the created policies and laws as mentioned before.

 

According to AODA, Your training must include:

 

Accessibility for Ontarian's with Disabilities Act

 

An overview of the requirements of the customer service standard

 

Your organization’s policy on providing accessible customer service

 

Tips on how to interact with people with various types of disabilities

- See section"types" for more details

 

Tips on how to interact with people who use an assistive device or require the assistance of a service animal or support person

- See section "types" for more details

 

Information on how to use any equipment or devices available in your organization to help provide goods or services to people with disabilities (e.g., screen readers, lifts)

 

Tips on what to do if a person with a disability is having difficulty accessing your organization’s goods or services

 

As further elaborated on in the Technology section, companies in retail, and in particular the larger ones have a lot of employees to train and thats why we are starting to see more computer-based training. Customers with disabilities is a topic that all employees must take part of and the business must make sure that it remains current and up to date at all times. Some training topics in regards to training are on the accessibility laws and human rights legislations as it relates to people with disabilities. This training always gets updated and retail companies must keep up to date which will lead us to step 3.

 

 

 

 

You must maintain records of your training training if you are:

1. A private or non-profit organization  (that has 50+ employees)

2. A public sector organization of any size

 

You must also:

• Maintain written records of all training done to meet the accessibility requirements that apply to your organization and shown 

• Record when the training was delivered and how many people took the training

• Document in writing all their policies, practices and procedures for providing accessible customer service. It must also meet other document requirements set out in the standard as well.

• Notify customers that the required documents for the customer service standard is available upon request

• When giving documents required under the customer service standard to a person with a disability, provide the Information in a format that takes into account the person’s disability.

 

 

 

 

    Retail organizations may have to meet additional accessibility requirements under some circumstances. Keeping track of the past and future deadlines to comply with accessibility laws will better organize the company and have proof that they are staying up to date. Another thing that retail companies have to do when training employees about disabilities, is to file accessibility compliance reports which confirm you are meeting the accessibility requirements.

 

- Ontario’s accessibility laws and standards for disabilities are in hopes of being completely implemented by 2025.