Top 5 Low-Cost Customer Service Improvements

…that can improve your bookings, profits and reputation

• Across the UK, business is missing out on £2.74 billion sales to people with disabilities.
  (These statistics come from a national charity called Scope.)

• £7.7268 million (or more) of that potential income could be attracted to the Island.
  (Calculated with statistics from IW Council and Visit IoW.)

Almost every Island business in accommodation, leisure, retail and attractions could benefit.

Improvements in accessibility information, staff training and facilities will help your business.

How to attract new custom from holiday-makers with disabilities

These improvements cost very little and are usually quick to implement:

1. Write and upload an Accessibility Guide.
   Publish fairly detailed information on accessibility to and around your business. Provide it online so that visitors can make their own decision based on reliable facts – honesty is the best policy: aim to build trust rather than claim perfection. This is the most important step.
   Your cost: zero, your time: 1 day. (Our do-it-for-you service: variable – please enquire.)

2. Train your staff to welcome everybody.
   Show them how to greet people with disabilities, offer additional help unobtrusively and encourage positive feedback, great reviews & convincing recommendations.
   Your cost: zero, your time: 1 day. (Our course: £99 per head or £900 for an inhouse event.)

3. Start a list of all your additional help facilities.
   Ensure staff know how to guide people to the facilities for disabled people you already have so they can help at a moment’s notice. Provide training in use where necessary.
   Your cost: zero, your time: 30-60 minutes or so.

4. Start a listing of all bookings who note a disability.
   Build trust by forewarning staff to help them prepare, and inform visitors immediately if your accessibility for them changes (even accidentally) so they can decide how to respond.
   Your cost: zero, your time: 5 minutes a day.

5. Keep a long-term list of all guests with disabilities.
   Offer to keep them up-to-date over the year about accessibility developments you undertake, and similar improvements locally, to entice them back again next year.
   Your cost: zero, your time: 5 minutes a day.

Obviously, you could do more, but we suggest these are an easy low-cost way to start.

NOTE: These improvements will make you more popular with IW resident customers too!