Have you heard about....?
Research by the telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, has found that the telephone companies do not do enough to tell users with disabilities about the facilities that are available to them.
People with disabilities may not be aware of the range of special services offered to them by the phone companies, services which those companies offer as part of their duty under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). These services can include free directory enquiries, large print versions of bills, third party bill management for people who are long-term hospitalised, alternative handsets, priority fault repair arrangements, and the text link services for deaf customers. Part of Ofcom's duty is not only to ensure the phone companies offer services to help people with disabilities, but also to ensure these services are properly publicised.
Using the "mystery shopper" technique, Ofcom researchers contacted the UK's eight phone service providers, saying they were calling on behalf of a relative with a disability. The various disabilities they represented included blindness, visual impairment, deafness and cognitive impairment. Despite starting the call with this information, the researchers found that only a third of the help centre operators volunteered information about services for disabled customers, and only 16% of operators mentioned more than one of the available services. Even when prompted by the caller, a quarter of operators still offered no information about the special services provided by the phone company. Ofcom also found that in almost 20% of the calls, its researchers were initially told that there were no special services for disabled customers.
Ofcom conducted similar studies in 2008 and 2006. Its latest finding show a small increase in the number of operators who mentioned a special service without prompting. However, overall it found that operators in 2010 were less informative, (and perhaps less well informed) than in 2006. For example, the most commonly mentioned service for deaf users was text relay, mentioned 49% of the time after prompting in 2010 compared to 78% of the time in 2006, and the rebates for text relay were mentioned only 6% of the time in 2010 compared to 33% of the time in 2006.
Seven of the eight phone companies were also contacted by email. Virgin was excluded as its website offers no method for electronic communication. Ignoring auto-replies, it took an average of four days for 70% of the enquiries to receive a response, whilst 30% did not receive an answer at all. Two-thirds of replies gave a URL or website address where further information could be found, and just over half gave a phone number to contact for further information. However the majority of these were for general information rather than specifically disability-related. Ofcom concluded that, overall, less information was provided by email than by phone, which is disappointing as the email would give the provider more opportunity to pass the enquiry to a knowledgeable member of staff and to properly research answers.
Hopefully, the phone companies have quickly taken Ofcom's findings on board and looked at their call centre training, at the way they handle emails, and the information they offer via their websites.
Ofcom's Report (PDF)
www.skillzone.net/shortcut/nl34ofcom
25th October 2010
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.