Hey Business Owners!!! "Consider the Deaf Customer"

The beginning of a successful business relationship is one which is built by sharing the community’s common interests and common goals to obtain mutual benefits.

This formula is key in building a customer base because without customers and their referrals, a business cannot succeed rendering its services useless to the community it is trying to serve.

In point, speaking to the needs of the deaf community, there seems to be a large disconnect between our needs and the services provided by business’, even though it is conducive to their bottom line. In larger cities where there is a larger presence of deaf individuals, ignoring the needs of the consumer is akin to business suicide. Accessibility for all of consumers is a must.

Below is a short list that could assist Hearing Businesses when prospecting for the Deaf/Deaf-Blind/Hard of Hearing Customers:

This is by no means a complete list.

Having access to an available TTY/TDD in house. Most businesses have a phone for customer use or for business use that a customer can use if they need to have someone pick them up at the place of business. Instead of attempting to get the person employed at the business to call and decipher ASL, it would give the deaf person control over this and know that this business knows about deaf people and cares about their concerns.

Providing closed captioning on all TVs in their establishment. How many times have you been to a restaurant that might have a TV playing with the game on and you can’t follow? Or what about going to the doctor’s office and you finally catch something you’re interested in but can’t follow along because of no captioning? With captioning on all available TVs, this gives the deaf person something to look forward to and might make it a favored place.

Learning at least the ASL alphabet. While we can’t expect every hearing person to know ASL, it would be a positive step in the right direction and would show the Deaf Community at large that steps are being taken to help facilitate communication.

As more people come into contact with the Deaf and realize that their concerns are valid and worth attempting to reconcile, the better standing they will have within not only the Deaf Community but also the hearing world at large; that they are including all people and are willing to learn and provide services to those different from them.