People living with disability are customers and consumers. But are they spending money in your business?
The City’s Accessible Business Program has been designed to help City of Belmont Businesses to remove barries and become more accessible for people living with disability as well as those with age-related mobility impairments, people using prams and people living with dementia.
By completing the program, businesses will receive their accreditation and ‘friendly for all’ decals to be displayed at their premises as well as open themselves to a larger customer base.
Our program has been designed to scale to businesses of any size, revenue or resources, meaning achievable changes – big or small – can always be identified and actioned for the benefit of people living with disability.
The program comprises of five steps:
Step 1: Express your interest
Let us know that you’re interested in joining by contacting the City via our online form.
Step 2: Read the material
Once you’ve contacted us, familiarise yourself with accessibility and disability using our range of resources including the guide, checklists, videos and factsheets. Once you’re ready, take the quiz to confirm your understanding.
Step 3: Book your assessment
The City will contact you to arrange for an accessibility assessment to be undertaken at your business.
Step 4: Development of recommendations
Based off your business’ assessment, the City will work with you to develop two recommendations for improving your accessibility. Once recommendations have been agreed on, your business will commit to resolving these within a year.
Step 5: Recognition
Once you have started on your Accessible Business journey, you will be provided with the City’s decal sticker to display at your business and be listed on the City’s Website as a ‘Friendly for All’ business.
Improving access to your goods and services can help connect you with a larger part of the City of Belmont community. By not being accessible, businesses may be missing out on potential customers. This not only means those living with disability, older customers and families with strollers but also their family and friends.
Many people living with disability rely on ‘word of mouth’ to learn about what is available in their community and are willing travel significant distances for a business that they know to be accessible.
Businesses that join our program also open themselves up to additional recognition through their accreditation including the ‘Friendly for All’ accreditations decal, free listing on the City’s website and support training for staff.
The four pillars
To simplify the process of becoming more accessible, we've broken our program into four pillars:
- Make it easy for people to find me;
- Make it easy for people to get in;
- Make it easy for people to move around and;
- Make the most of our team and customer service.
To show the four pillars of our program in action, the City created the Accessible Business Program videos series. Watch each of the videos below to familiarise yourself with access and inclusion at play in business settings.
Once you’ve watched the videos, complete the quiz to test your knowledge and progress to the next stage in the program.
