Deaf-Friendly Certified Business - Endorsed by Deaf Consumers
Seattle, WA (PRWEB) April 12, 2017 -- While celebrating our five-year anniversary this month, deaffriendly.com is pleased to announce the launch of its Deaf-Friendly Certified Business program. This program spotlights businesses around the nation who consistently go above and beyond to provide top notch deaf-friendly customer service to Deaf customers.
With the rise of hearing owned businesses “certifying” businesses as deaf-friendly using a limited or narrow criteria and no real experience as Deaf consumers, the Deaf community has grown concerned. Often, these businesses are certifying businesses for marketing purposes, as a way to position themselves as the experts, to promote their services or a way to make profit without actually involving Deaf people and their consumer experiences. deaffriendly.com knew they could not wait any longer to launch their Deaf-Friendly Certified Business program.
Creating a certification program of this kind is not something that happened overnight. deaffriendly has spent two years developing this program based on what Deaf consumers were saying through their reviews. The Deaf-Friendly Certified Business criteria included research and interviews from 15 Deaf reviewers across the nation. The final criteria was based on their standards of what a deaf-friendly business means.
Deaf consumers can be confident that each business selected to go through the Deaf-Friendly Certified Business process will meet a rigorous criteria by people that understand them to ensure each business is ethical and truly deserving of certification.
The Deaf-Friendly Certified Business program is rigorous, transparent, and intense. Not just any business can become a Deaf-Friendly Certified Business.
What makes a Deaf-Friendly Certified Business?
1. Business has a high number of deaf-friendly reviews, written by Deaf people.
2. Business has demonstrated a wide variety of deaf-friendly skills.
3. Business has undergone an internal vetting process.
4. Business has completed our “Deaf-Friendly Customer Service” training.
To be certified, each business must complete the above steps. Only after a business has complete all four steps are they considered a Deaf-Friendly Certified Business.
How will I know if a business is a Deaf-Friendly Certified Business?
Look out for the Deaf-Friendly Certified Business window decal on storefronts when you visit a place of business. When you are browsing deaffriendly.com you’ll also see the Deaf-Friendly Certified Business badge on select business profiles.
Are any businesses Certified Deaf-Friendly yet?
Yes! In the month of May, we will announce the first five businesses that have gone through our intensive Deaf-Friendly Certified Business program and invite you to keep a watch out for them as we reveal who they are and join us in congratulating them.
How can I learn more about this?
Head to our Deaf-Friendly Certified Business page on the website to learn more or email us at info(at)deaffriendly(dot)com.
Together, we can create a deaf-friendly world, one review at a time.
About deaffriendly
Established in 2012 by Melissa “echo” Greenlee, deaffriendly.com is the only Deaf owned and operated consumer review website in the United States. With nearly 3,000 businesses reviews written by hundreds of neutral, third party Deaf, DeafBlind and hard of hearing reviewers from all over the country, deaffriendly has the deaf-friendly and deaf-challenged data to back it up!
Up until now, the Deaf experience has been told primarily by hearing people with no personal background as a Deaf or hard of hearing consumer. That’s why deaffriendly uses their review platform and the thousands of reviews written by Deaf consumers to give valuable insight into what Deaf consumers really want through our “Deaf-Friendly Customer Service” training. Our all-Deaf team has decades of experience teaching others how to work with, serve, and interact with Deaf people.
While deaffriendly began as an online review website, now, with our customer service training, Deaf-Friendly Certified Business program and community education chats, we are so much more!
Melissa "echo" Greenlee, deaffriendly.com, http://www.deaffriendly.com, +1 (206) 518-9731, [email protected]
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