Following our benchmarking process, you will find that Louder than Words has a beneficial impact on different parts of your business.  These include several commercial and legal benefits.

During the process, we benchmark your organisation and provide invaluable advice, to help you achieve the highest service standards and level of accessibility you offer to customers and employees.

On this page we explain:

Commercial benefits

Applying for the charter mark makes good business sense, as there are over 9 million people (approximately 1 in 7) in the UK, who are either deaf or hard of hearing. Some of your best customers may have a hearing loss, particularly the elderly (many of whom have higher disposable incomes), and you may unknowingly make it difficult for them to do business with you.

In an increasingly competitive business environment, can you really afford to ignore these valuable customers?  With no clear strategy to provide a good level of service to this sector, many organisations are simply “closing their doors” to them.

By undertaking the Louder than Words process, organisations have found that they can serve deaf and hard of hearing people more confidently and profitably, enhancing service quality and increasing customer loyalty.  Furthermore, many of the recommendations implemented by Louder than Words are cost effective and can indirectly benefit other customers.

The advice provided by our Louder than Words assessors has been used by several organisations to achieve savings in other areas of their business and in some cases these have far outweighed the initial consultation costs.   Read about the benefits some organisations (opens new browser window) have experienced by achieving Louder than Words.

Legal benefits

The introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) placed a legal requirement on organisations to ensure that products and services are accessible to all. Organisations are now legally obliged to make reasonable adjustments to ensure they are not discriminating against disabled people. 

Unfortunately, many organisations think that concentrating on physical access is all that is required, and they ignore the needs of deaf and hard of hearing people.  Undertaking Louder than Words will encourage you to meet the requirements of the DDA in relation to deaf and hard of hearing people.

Louder than Words also aims to help ensure compliance with the Disability Equality Duty (2005), as public authorities now have a duty to include equality in their policies, budgets and services, including services they sub-contract. 

Louder than Words encourages organisations to consider these factors and helps ensure that deaf and hard of hearing people are not disadvantaged.  This is achieved using a model of best practice that eliminates barriers deaf and hard of hearing people face. 

Where to start

We have helped hundreds of organisations become more accessible to deaf and hard of hearing people.  We know that just finding out where to start can seem incredibly daunting.  How do you know when you’ve "done enough"?

This is where we can help. With expert advice and guidance we'll show you, step by step, what your organisation needs to do to become more accessible for both employees and customers and how this can be measured and maintained in the future.

The quality standards that make up the Louder than Words charter are the principles that we will use to ensure you’re accessible to deaf and hard of hearing people. 

How we do it

Knowing where to start in evaluating how accessible your company or organisation is to deaf and hard of hearing people can be difficult.  For this reason we have developed the Louder than Words benchmark. The process begins with a visit to your site(s) by one of our assessors to benchmark the physical environment, your policies and procedures. 

After this visit we will write a comprehensive report, outlining the steps that you need to take in order to become fully accessible to deaf and hard of hearing people. We'll also suggest priority levels for each of the actions, giving you a positive starting point to begin your journey to accessibility. 

There are two key benefits to carrying out all of the recommendations:

Achieve the charter mark

Before we can award the charter mark, we must be sure that your organisation is offering a fully deaf aware service to employees and customers alike.

If you've already had a Louder than Words benchmarking report, and have implemented all of its recommendations, then we'll be happy to carry out the audit to ensure everything has been covered and subsequently award you the charter mark.

Alternatively, you may feel that even without having received a benchmark report, your organisation is already offering a fully accessible service. In such cases, we just carry out an audit to make sure you’ve looked at all of the relevant points, before awarding the charter mark.

What next?

For more information, or to request a benchmark or audit, please contact us at:

Training Services, RNID, Aeroworks, 5 Adair Street, Manchester, M1 2NQ
Telephone: 0161 276 2311/2
Textphone: 0161 276 2316
Fax: 0161 276 3606
Email: training.services@rnid.org.uk

You can also read the answers to our list of frequently asked questions about the Louder than Words charter.