Accessible Customer Service Standard

Ontario's Accessible Customer Service Standard is Now Law

Summary of Requirements:

2.  Accessible Customer Service Training

3.  Compliance

Guide to the Accessible Customer Service Standard (Ministry of Community & Social Services)

Accessibility - Tools & Resources (under development)

The Accessible Customer Service Standard Regulation 429/07, effective January 2008, stipulates how faculty and staff are to interact and communicate with people with various types of disabilities.  

Customer service refers to service delivery to the public, and includes business practices and how educational services are delivered.  To learn more about what it means to provide accessible customer service prior to taking the training, please refer to our Accessible Customer Service brochure series.

Learn more about what businesses and organizations must do to comply with the Accessible Customer Service Standard:

1.  The Guide to the Accessibility Standards for Customer Service

The Guide to the Accessibility Standards for Customer Services explains the standard and provides some examples to help you understand it.

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2.  Summary of requirements (.pdf version)

The standard requires every designated public sector organization and all other providers of goods or services in Ontario who have at least one employee in Ontario to do the following:

1. Establish policies, practices and procedures on providing goods or services to people with disabilities.
2. Set a policy on allowing people to use their own personal assistive devices to access your goods and use your services and about any other measures your organization offers (assistive devices, services or methods) to enable them to access your goods and use your services.
3. Use reasonable efforts to ensure that your policies, practices and procedures are consistent with the core principles of independence, dignity, integration and equality of opportunity.
4. Communicate with a person with a disability in a manner that takes into account his or her disability.
5. Train staff, volunteers, contractors and any other people who interact with the public or other third parties on your behalf on a number of topics as outlined in the customer service standard.
6. Train staff, volunteers, contractors and any other people who are involved in developing your policies, practices and procedures on the provision of goods or services on a number of topics as outlined in the customer service standard.
7. Allow people with disabilities to be accompanied by their guide dog or service animal in those areas of the premises you own or operate that are open to the public, unless the animal is excluded by another law. If a service animal is excluded by law, use other measures to provide services to the person with a disability.
8. Permit people with disabilities who use a support person to bring that person with them while accessing goods or services in premises open to the public or third parties.
9. Where admission fees are charged, provide notice ahead of time on what admission, if any, would be charged for a support person of a person with a disability.
10. Provide notice when facilities or services that people with disabilities rely on to access or use your goods or services are temporarily disrupted.
11. Establish a process for people to provide feedback on how you provide goods or services to people with disabilities and how you will respond to any feedback and take action on any complaints. Make the information about your feedback process readily available to the public.

Additional responsibilities for:

• designated public sector organizations, and
• other organizations with 20 or more employees

They must also:

• document in writing their accessible customer service policies, practices and procedures
• notify customers that these documents are available upon request, and
• provide information in the required document(s), when providing them to a person with a disability, in a format that takes into account the person’s disability.