Today 12th November is Purple Tuesday 2019 an international call to action, focusing on changing the customer experience for disabled people. It urges all organisations big and small, from all sectors to take decisive and practical steps to meet the needs of disabled customers.
Household names including #Sainsbury’s, #Sky, West Ham United, The Crown Estate and M&S have committed to improving the customer experience for disabled people by supporting Purple Tuesday. New research published for Purple Tuesday reveals that poor customer service and a lack of staff understanding are among the key barriers preventing disabled consumers purchasing goods and services.
Mike Adams OBE, Chief Executive of Purple, said: (pictured)
“Meeting the needs of disabled customers makes commercial sense for organisations of all sizes, from all sectors, but our message to organisations is: you don’t have to spend big budgets to make lasting change. That’s why we’re urging organisations to focus on improvements that go ‘beyond the front door’. Introducing staff training and improving website accessibility are low cost changes, but the difference to a company’s bottom line – as well as to a disabled consumer’s personal experience – can be significant.
“Purple Tuesday has more than doubled in size this year, with more than 2500 organisations from a variety of sectors making commitments to improve the customer experience for disabled people. These are long-term changes that will have a lasting impact for millions of customers – and improve the commercial opportunities for the organisations involved.”
UK wide the Purple Pound – the consumer spending power of disabled people and their families – is worth £249 billion and is rising by an average of 14% per year. Worldwide, the Purple Pound is a staggering £2.25 trillion, despite this less than 10% of businesses have any specific planning to access this disability market.
Purple Tuesday is about creating awareness of the value and needs of disabled customers, making the customer experience accessible. Participating organisations will make public commitments (a minimum of one new activity or initiative) to ensure sustainable changes are made. For organisations, this will result in the opening up of products and services to the disability market.
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