6 ms·
According to some brief research, it looks like somewhere around 0.33% of Americans under 85 are deaf, and around 4% are hard of hearing [1]. I find it preposte
by bradleyland 15y ago
According to some brief research, it looks like somewhere around 0.33% of Americans under 85 are deaf, and around 4% are hard of hearing [1]. I find it preposterous to optimize for that small section of the user population at the expense of the overwhelming number of our users who tell us that phone is their preferred method of contact. We're probably going to continue asking for a phone number, because many users would be frustrated if email were the only method of reply available.
What I'm NOT suggesting is that we fail to accommodate deaf users. We don't have a policy on how to accommodate deaf or sight impaired customers, but we rely heavily on non-phone based means of communication, like Skype, so I'd imagine we could accommodate deaf users relatively easily. We use well formed HTML with semantic markup, but could probably stand to do some testing with screen readers.
Come to think of it. This request has moved me to action. Staff resources are going to be updated with notes on accommodating users with disabilities, including links to TTY services in the resource handbook. Solving this problem is probably easier than you think. All the major phone carriers are required to provide TTY services [2].
1 - http://research.gallaudet.edu/Demographics/deaf-US.php http://research.gallaudet.edu/Demographics/deaf-US.php
2 - http://www.google.com/search?q=tty+services http://www.google.com/search?q=tty+services
- nknight 15y agoA lot more than just your deaf customers hate phone calls. They're disruptive, intrusive, unreliable, and for many people with autism-spectrum disorders, extremely uncomfortable.
- frossie 15y ago... And people who don't speak English so well. Moreover if his customers truly prefer the phone, he could make giving the phone number optional and people would still give it out.
- r00fus 15y agoGoogle voice solves this pretty well... I get an email saying someone left a VM with the poor but adequate transcript.
- reemrevnivek 15y agoWhat service are you running where the "overwhelming number of [y]our users" tell you that phone is their preferred method of contact? As I wrote on the blog, email allows me to: - respond when it’s convenient for me. - keep most of my attention on what I’m doing. - archive and share the correspondence easily. - filter content I don’t want to hear anymore. - remain anonymous. - make careful, researched, edited responses. - include screenshots, links to videos, and other files which might be helpful. - continue to correspond if I loose my hearing and/or speaking abilities. I’m not hearing impaired, and I much prefer email. Phone calls are only acceptable in a small number of situations, and I want to be the person to decide when those situations occur.
- robryan 15y agoYeah, for a lot if cases it's harder to explain things over the phone. Also you might get someone who doesn't know the answer and you need to explain it again to the next person. Add to that I'd rather my email sit in a queue that stay on hold on the phone.
- ianferrel 15y agoI generally prefer phone contact. Not because I actually prefer talking on the phone, but because of how different most companies treat email and phone contact. When you talk on the phone, you have someone who's listening to you right now, and if they misunderstand you, you can re-explain. If they continue to be unhelpful, you can talk to a supervisor. Email, on the other hand, seems to go into a queue, which is responded to with one of a variety of boilerplate responses, most of which aren't really quite to the point. Yeah, I can respond when it's convenient to me, but so can they, causing a simple misunderstanding to require multiple round trips of idiocy lasting several days.
- neutronicus 15y agoPhone calls allow me to: - make sure that I have your attention until my problem is solved
- dredmorbius 15y ago
- 0x12 15y agoBesides accessibility being enshrined in law in many places there are lots of people that simply don't like giving their phone number and/or being called. Giving your users multiple options for communication is a no-brainer.
- jasonlotito 15y ago> Besides accessibility being enshrined in law in many places This is already resolved by the phone company for hearing impaired people. It's not as if phones just popped up. They've been around for a bit longer then the internet.
- poodougnut 15y agoI don't think the OP is suggesting phone support should be phased out; he's saying that email support should be there too and be on par. I can name a couple of companies I've had to interact with in the past few days that only offer phone support: Student Finance, EDF Energy.
- DanBC 15y agowww.edfenergy.com/products-services/for.../priority_services.pdf >If you have a textphone, please call our Minicom Line free on 0800 096 2929 I agree that email (as well as phone) is a better solution.
- JulianMorrison 15y agoThe trick is to be polite and say HOW should we contact you? You prefer email? Okay, email please. And you prefer phone? Okay, phone number please. And never, never put a "required" validation on something like a phone number that someone simply may not have at all.
- silverbax88 15y agoYes, this is the best way to handle customer preferred contact. When someone "requires" a phone number, I think, "I'm not answering that phone call - you need to email me so I can work you into my day."
- mikeash 15y agoWhy do you insist on creating a false dichotomy between requiring a phone number and disallowing phone contact altogether? You can support multiple methods of communication with any single one being optional. Making the phone number optional wouldn't inconvenience your other customers in the slightest.
- dredmorbius 15y agoI've found that if provided with a phone number, the people you'd least like to call you, do.
- briandear 15y agoPhone calls from anyone are usually a pain in the ass. I have to stop what I'm doing and context-switch wasting my time. Unless your company is live dispatching transplant organs or is rescuing me from being trapped in an earthquake or if you're my wife--I NEVER want a phone call. I don't like wasting my time listening to nonsense. Amazon works just fine without calling me so I can't imagine why any other business aside from a few very narrow exceptions would ever need to call anyone. Remove validates phone number :presence => true and leave me the hell alone. Xie xie.
- WingForward 15y agoTTY users are declining. I don't know the statistics, but 80% of my interaction with the Deaf is by Videophone (VP) (aka video relay service (VRS)). Training staff on how a VRS or TTY relay call works is pretty simple. A few general rules are: 1) Talk as if you are addressing the Deaf person directly (don't say, "tell her hello", say "hello"). 2) Speak in discrete chunks of meaning with pauses in between to give the interpreter a chance to catch up. 3) Expect everything you say to be interpreted.
- JoshTriplett 15y agoBy all means, have a field in your forms for "phone number". Just don't make it a required field.
- DanBC 15y ago>We don't have a policy on how to accommodate deaf or sight impaired customers, This is not legal in the UK under disability discrimination laws; I'm surprised it's not the same in other countries. As well as being not legal it's a pretty shoddy way to treat potential customers. >This request has moved me to action. Cool! I'd be really interested to read how it goes; if you have problems; if you get any customer feedback.