An inclusive CX program is a win for everyone

Inequality in service provision doesn’t usually come from wilful discrimination, but a lack of conscious effort to be inclusive in our practices.

This is especially true when it comes to a company’s CX (customer experience) program.

In far too many cases, certain demographics – particularly older Australians, people living with disability and CALD communities – risk being excluded by companies who haven’t given enough thought to how accessible and inclusive their customer interactions are.

Avoidable barriers often prevail when content is only available in English, website text is too small for people to read, hard to distinguish buttons and surveys cannot be navigated by people with disability or memory impairment.

Inclusion must shape every touch-point in a company – not just as an ethical responsibility, but because it makes good business sense. Accessible customer experiences promote trust and positive affiliations with a brand. On the flip side, customer retention is often reduced by a lack of accessibility.

An inclusive CX program also opens the door to a larger pool of potential aged care customers, making your business more sustainable in the long term.

The importance of getting feedback from all – not some – consumers

Exceptional service can’t happen without understanding who your customers are, and what they think about your company.

Recently, the Aged Care Royal Commission highlighted the importance of consumer experience reporting, putting the onus on providers to support regular feedback from people receiving care.

Feedback, though, isn’t effective unless all consumers are given a voice.

Traditional ways of surveying customers can often create barriers for people based on their ability, native language, digital familiarity or cognitive capability.

Standard 2.4 from the inclusive service standards states providers should have systems in place for receiving feedback from consumers from special needs groups and for using this feedback to improve services. This inclusive standard also directly links into standard 1 and 8 from the aged care quality standards.

Unless your CX program enables everyone to freely express their views, it is hard to form an accurate picture of your company’s consumer experience – or create a service that is truly inclusive.

This is where we can help

CarePage CX is an inclusive quality compliance tool and customer experience program that is specifically designed for aged care, disability, home care and retirement service providers.

It helps you understand what matters to all of your customers, so you can create services that people value.

Our CX program – including our survey templates and feedback channels – is designed with inclusion firmly in mind, so everyone is given a voice.

Thoughtful and highly accessible UX design, combined with W3C web-friendliness, makes it easy for residents of all abilities and ages to give honest feedback.

CarePage survey testing - faces — CarePage survey dashboard

Our CX program is also accessible in different languages. With currently one in three Australians aged 65 and older born overseas (most of them from a non-English speaking country), this means a significant proportion of consumers who would otherwise be ignored are accommodated for.

Inclusion and accessibility should be more than buzzwords. If these values are deeply embedded in your CX program, they can drive powerful insights that lead to services that people love.