News

Read about the latest developments at Shepherd and Wedderburn - as well as updates on the law. There are also details of our latest deals, and our media centre for journalists.

Media Releases
2004

06 May
2004

Losing out on a £5 billion market in Scotland?

New report highlights what disabled consumers expect from business just six months before new law comes into force.

Six months before the introduction of new disability legislation Capability Scotland and Shepherd and Wedderburn have released research highlighting that Scottish business could be missing out on a market worth around £5 billion.

The country’s leading disability organisation and law firm have joined forces to highlight the impact of new disability legislation on business. Touted as the most significant consumer legislation for a decade, the final part of the Disability Discrimination Act will come into effect in October 2004. It places new duties on business to address any physical features of their service which could discriminate against disabled customers.

The survey looked at the consumer habits of disabled people and demonstrates what changes they, as consumers, feel will make the most impact. The research found that staff attitude is a key deciding factor, followed by disabled access to the store and inside the store, in choice of where to shop, who a disabled consumer will recommend and how much they will pay:

  • Over half of respondents said they had recommended a shop, store or bank to a friend or relative because it had been particularly helpful or offered good disabled access. :
  • Three quarters of respondents said that they would be prepared to pay a little extra for products if a shop provides a good service for disabled people

Respondents were also asked who they thought were “top of the shops” when it came to getting it right for disabled customers. The results showed ASDA as the top grocer, HBOS the top financial service and Marks & Spencer top in the general category. However when asked to name poor businesses, disabled consumers rated the financial services industry as worst closely followed by supermarkets.

Commenting on the results Lynne Scott of Shepherd and Wedderburn said:

“As is evident from the research, a number of factors contribute to the service experienced by disabled people. Whilst many of these relate to physical features of properties such as poor access to premises or lack of space in which to manoeuvre, a major contributing factor in both good and bad service experiences is staff attitude. As disabled people in Scotland alone are estimated to have a spending power of £5 billion per year, it would seem a worthwhile investment for service providers to train their staff in good customer service for the disabled population.

“It should also be borne in mind that services can now be provided without the consumer even having to leave his or her own home, by means of the world wide web. The DDA applies in the same way to providers of services over the internet as it does to more traditional businesses and this research shows that nearly half of all respondents had made purchases over the internet in the past year. Results of a recent DRC investigation into web access for disabled people, however, show that 81% of websites are not suitable for use by disabled consumers.

“It is clear from this survey that disabled people require better customer service from staff and better access to businesses and information. In many cases the cost of making what are often relatively minor adjustments are low, and could provide valuable protection for businesses who may otherwise face legal actions for substantially greater sums.”

Michelle Hegarty, Capability Scotland added:

“Unfortunately there has been a lot of scaremongering and misinformation about the cost of the changes business will face in October. The law talks about reasonable change and this survey clearly shows that disabled people also have reasonable expectations. The key finding is that staff attitude is absolutely vital when it comes to getting it right followed by access to the building and inside it. The vast majority of businesses already have some sort of customer care programme in place – we’d encourage them to make disability equality training the basis for their own staff training programmes – after all if you can get it right for a disabled customer you can get it right for everyone. But there’s also a need to consider your physical access both to your service and inside it – there’s lots of information available from both the Disability Rights Commission and local access panels which can help you get the balance on what reasonably you should be doing now.”


« Back to Press Releases