The Accessible Link #1 - Welcome all!
The Accessible Link #1 - Welcome all!
Welcome to the first issue of "The Accessible Link"!
Hello everyone,
First of all, a big thank you! You’re now officially an early adopter. Most of you subscribed to this newsletter when I hadn’t written a single line of text. It was still all in my head. So thank you so much for your curiosity and your trust. Many of you don’t know me yet, but somehow you found this newsletter. So I will use this first issue to introduce myself.
I’m just back from two weeks in Malta, where I had the idea to start this newsletter. It was a very relaxing and accessible trip. Also, the flights were okay; they were my first flights after the pandemic. So I was very interested to see how things have changed, but all went well (okay, it would have been nice if BA kept the lights on while I was still waiting for my wheelchair on the plane; I never transferred into my wheelchair while a flight attendant held a battery torch before).
The hotel was perfect; since last year, wheelchair users can book accessible taxis in Malta, which made even transport easy despite the sometimes quite challenging infrastructure (tiny pavements!).
What is this newsletter about?
My aim is to provide informative and engaging content on accessibility, inclusion, and a good customer experience for disabled customers.
"The Accessible Link" connects customer experience with accessibility in transport, aviation, and railway. It also contains reflections on inclusion. You will get an email roughly every two weeks.
So who is writing this newsletter?
I’m Christiane Link, and I improve the customer experience in aviation, transport, and travel. I worked as a journalist for over two decades and travelled extensively for business and leisure.
After one of my trips around 2003, I sent a German airline some feedback and suggested they train their flight attendants in disability equality. I flew with them a lot, and as a customer who uses a wheelchair, I wanted to give them some helpful feedback. These were the days before there were any regulations for disabled customers in aviation.
To make a long story short, that was my entry into the world of customer experience, accessibility, and aviation. The airline contacted me and asked me to help them to train their flight attendants and, later, airport staff, which I did for years as a “side job” while working for a news agency as a journalist. Many other aviation, transport, and railway clients followed over time; today, I have a consulting business called Ortegalink Ltd and develop customer experience strategies related to accessibility and inclusion.
Some other facts about me:
I’m a Londoner with two passports (German and British)
Member of several advisory boards
I founded a newspaper
I’m a wheelchair-using geek
I have been disability rights advocate for 25+ years
I was a London2012 Opening Ceremony performer
I live with my partner, who is a software architect. For more than ten years, we travelled together with his guide dog Mercer who sadly passed away last year, and we are waiting for a new guide dog to join our life.
I’m pro inclusion, against segregation, and champion the social model of disability.
So let’s start…
Something to make your business more accessible
Some years ago, I checked into a hotel in Cologne. I had just arrived at my room when the phone rang. On the phone was the hotel manager. She asked me if I would be happy to meet with her the next day in the hotel bar for a free drink and some snacks to give her feedback on the accessibility of the hotel room and the hotel in general. I was the first guest in the accessible room after a renovation, and she wanted to know if they could improve anything.
I was impressed. There was a genuine interest in getting things right for disabled customers. Of course, I met with her, and we even stayed in touch for years.
Ask your disabled customers how happy they are with the accessibility of your service or product. It’s a chance to improve it and send a strong message to your disabled customers that you want to get it right. That you appreciate them. Disabled customers are very often loyal customers. When I know the accessibility is perfect, and the service is excellent, I stick with this company because it’s pretty hard to find such a company in the first place.
Some interesting links
Did anyone try to sell you an accessibility overlay for your website? This Overlay fact sheet gives you all the arguments against it.
Tanni Grey-Thompson raises car charging point access concerns.
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority upgrades 17 stations to make them accessible.
6 Ways to Build a Customer-Centric Culture.
Something to watch
Judith Heumann made the world a better place for disabled people. She was the "mother of disability rights" and a friend and role model for many disabled people around the world. She passed away on March 4th.
I highly recommend watching "Crip Camp" on Netflix. Her TED talk is good too.
Something #DisabilityTwitter is talking about
Something to read
I recommend a book in every newsletter that has positively impacted my work or that I like.
Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy by Dev Patnaik; also available as an audiobook
Why I liked the book:
It gives good arguments for why companies are successful when they are customer-centric and encourage empathy. There is a strong link between being inclusive and being empathetic.
Some final words
“Part of the problem is that we tend to think that equality is about treating everyone the same, when it's not. It's about fairness. It's about equity of access.”
Judith Heumann