One in every twenty people experience disabling hearing loss. This affects every aspect of their life, including how they interact with your business. It can be challenging for people who are deaf or those with poor hearing to understand what is being communicated to them, which prevents them from having a positive interaction with your company.
Partnering with an interpreting service like Flamingo Interpreting will ensure that your business is meeting the needs of deaf customers. These companies offer live interpreting solutions, sign language during online meetings, translation services, and captioning.
There are lots of advantages to improving accessibility at every level of a business. Let’s explore how using an interpreting service will benefit your company.
Improved Customer Experience
The most important advantage of working with an interpreting service is that it will improve the experiences of your deaf customers.
Imagine this. Your business offers video call support for customers, and someone with poor hearing wants to speak with a representative about a product they’ve purchased. They join the call to speak with you but are unable to hear what you’re saying.
Moving the customer to a text chat is impersonal and could leave them feeling disappointed in the knowledge that they’re not being offered the same high-quality service that other customers enjoy. You don’t know sign language and are unable to caption your speech, so have to end the call. The customer may be frustrated, and this may lead to them leaving a bad review or not buying from you again.
An interpreting service avoids this risk by providing sign language and captioning services that ensure your customer knows what you’re saying. Offering these communication services is the right thing to do, and any company in the business of happy customers should commit to incorporating them throughout the business’ operations.
Improved Bottom Line
Ensuring that you’re meeting the accessibility needs of all your customers isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s also sensible business practice. With 5% of people in the world having serious hearing-related issues, it’d be foolish to risk losing them as customers by not having the necessary tools in place.
Happy customers equal larger profits, so providing French or Spanish interpretation services at every level of your customer service journey is bound to improve your bottom line and help your company thrive.
Improved Employee Relations
Beyond improving relations with your customers, interpreting services will make you a more accessible and desirable company to work for. Offering interpreters in meetings and captioning internal video memos will boost your credibility as a great place to work.
If you gain a reputation for accommodating the needs of all your employees, you’ll attract top talent – which will benefit your company by putting you on the path to success.
Improved Compliance
By using interpreting services, you’ll be meeting some of your legal and moral obligations. Staff and customers deserve equal treatment under the law, so offering these services means you’ll be meeting your obligations to those who are deaf or have poor hearing.