Businesses spend billions to attract customers with marketing, advertising, decorating, and mood enhancers. But how many dollars are spent attracting 20% of the marketplace, the last frontier, the people with disabilities? Whatever the amount, it’s not enough. More is needed to open doors for people with disabilities excluded from shopping in stores, eating in restaurants, sleeping in hotel rooms, going to the theater, etc. Poor disability parking and curb cuts; impossible to open entrance doors; untrained sales staff; out-of-reach facilities; blocked aisles; and inaccessible bathrooms all add up to lost business and potential lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
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Businesses can stop discriminating and start improving their bottom line by understanding the questions people with disabilities ask when choosing where to take their business. It boils down to four things—the invitation, the welcome, the comfort level, and the satisfaction.
This invitation doesn’t come in the mail. It’s an assessment people with disabilities make in the parking lot with questions like the following: Is there any disability parking and how far is it from the entrance? Is there a curb cut onto the sidewalk and how close is it to the door? Can I open the door or is there enough customer traffic that I can count on another customer to open a heavy door for me?
The welcome doesn’t demand red carpet treatment, but calls for the same service offered to others. Unwelcome service occurs when (1) a customer is ignored because of the assumption they are not a buyer; (2) customer service representatives—hidden behind high counters out of sight, sound, or reach—don’t even see the person with a disability; and (3) places designed with a low counter fail to assign staff to work that station or use it for their own equipment. And what better welcome than to see people with disabilities providing service to customers.
The comfort level of people with disabilities involves accessible seating and bathrooms, for example. The ability to drink anything depends on an accessible bathroom and the wisdom of eating anything after going to the bathroom depends on the ability to reach the soap and water. Comfortable seating often determines whether I will return to a restaurant. I need to sit at a table instead of a booth so I can adjust the distance of my chair from the table. I need staff to treat me as an adult and not offer me a child’s menu or booster seat. My palate demands more than chicken fingers or hotdogs and my 40 inches in height does not indicate child size dimensions.
Satisfaction is achieved when customers are able to move around the store, reach and pay for selected merchandise, and use necessary facilities. People with disabilities often choose not to return to a business when payment options are inaccessible, display racks block the path of travel, carry bags are out of reach, and hotel beds require mountain climbing skills.
Marketing to people with disabilities makes good business sense.
Look for the October release of my book—PASS ME YOUR SHOES: A Couple with Dwarfism Navigates Life’s Detours with Love and Faith—which discusses what happens when God intervenes in a marriage complicated by dishonesty, dwarfism, discord, and discrimination.
10 replies on “Marketing to People with Disabilities”
You bring up some great points in this post, Angela! I think your suggestions reach across the aisle to everyone. Stores with automatic doors, easy-to-read signs, multiple check-out options, wider and organized aisles, and more spacious and accessible bathrooms are always more welcome places to shop. In courting people with disabilities, businesses can’t go wrong; they will only increase wide-spread appeal. Thank you for your insights and a lifetime of working on laws to improve accessibility.
Thanks Juliette. This article was adapted from my March 2006 speech to 30 Boca Raton, FL business leaders at a U.S. Dept. of Justice ADA Business Connection meeting, http://www.ada.gov/newsltr0406.htm. The ADA Business Connection aims to make everyday commerce more accessible to people with disabilities by bringing together local and national leaders of business and disability communities to discuss issues of mutual concern, by developing materials that explain the ADA to business owners and managers, and by making these materials available through the ADA Website. Read more about the program at http://www.ada.gov/business.htm.
Sometimes I find there to be environmental problems that make experiences in public settings harder, and that is as a person of average height. I can’t imagine having to face the many obstacles that you have to face, Angela.
I guess one of my jobs is to help people to “imagine” what it’s like to encounter environmental barriers so that they are willing to remove the obstacles. Typically, barrier removal doesn’t just clear the path for people with disabilities, but for everyone.
I always enjoy your blogs and teaching, Angela There’s so much we of normal height take for granted and I appreciate you making me aware to be more tuned in, or I pray I will be when the need arises!
I look forward to the release of your new book!! You have a great gift for writing.
Pleased the blog posts are raising your awareness on disability access issues. Thanks for the encouragement.
Marketing to People with Disabilities brings up so many excellent points, the main for me being that once impeded in a store with my daughter and her wheelchair, I never returned. Biggest beef? Aisles in the store so narrow that when a shopping cart and wheelchair meet, the wheelchair becomes the obstacle! It is so frustrating and entirely unnecessary with proper planning and store design!
After 30 years with the ADA and endless educational programs, businesses still don’t get it! Incredibly frustrating. But in the end, noncompliant businesses lose valuable customers who choose to go where they are welcomed with accessible design. And, of course, they are at risk for being sued for ADA noncompliance.
Hi Angela,
over the years you have taught me so much. I remember very well our Disneyland experience where the bus drivers were not going to co-operate in letting you use the lift to get on board. I learnt the law around this from you off by heart and went ahead of you ready to use it if needed. It solved the problem but there shouldn’t have been one in the first place.
Agreed. It takes constant vigilance and education to get service providers to do the right thing, even when the law makes it clear what they should be doing.