Why is Purple Tuesday important?

Written by Faye Jacklin

Purple Tuesday is an initiative designed to help organisations enhance the customer experience for disabled individuals and their families all year round. Each participating organisation commits to at least one practice change to improve accessibility. These commitments are celebrated annually as part of a global disabled customer celebration day.

Commitments can range from simple actions like the six-second rule to help neurodivergent individuals process information, to adopting the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Lanyard. They can also include more extensive efforts, such as conducting an online digital access audit or providing disability awareness training.

Participation in Purple Tuesday is free at a basic level, with additional fee-paying partnership opportunities available to support organisations in developing best practices and advancing their disability inclusion journey. This journey guides organisations and their staff from awareness and understanding to active involvement and engagement.

Purple Tuesday benefits disabled customers and staff, making both commercial and social sense.

Why is Purple Tuesday important?

For disabled people and their families:

• A poor customer service experience gives a sense of not being cared about and leads to a perception that the Purple Pound is not valued.
• 75 per cent of disabled customers have left a restaurant, shop, hotel or website without making a purchase due to a poor customer service experience and or accessibility issues.
• Poor accessibility impacts on the families of disabled customers as well as the disabled customer themselves.
• 70 per cent of disabled customers do not return to an organisation after experiencing poor customer service. This represents a significant loss and a missed opportunity.

• 73 per cent of disabled individuals favour brands that enable spontaneous visits without prior planning. This is easier for organisations to implement than they might realize.

For organisations and their staff:

• Can any business afford to overlook the needs of 24 per cent of the population, the world’s largest minority group?
•  The Purple Pound, representing the consumer spending power of disabled people and their families, amounts to £274 billion and is growing at 14 per cent per year. Globally, this figure reaches $13 trillion annually.
• Only 10 per cent of businesses have a strategy or plan to tap into this market. Those that do, and do it well, gain a competitive advantage.
• In a post-Covid world, the importance of social impact as a key brand metric has skyrocketed. Purple Tuesday offers a tangible way to achieve this and build momentum across the organisation. It integrates disability inclusion into ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) criteria.
• Would your organisation pass the disability family and friend test? Over 80 per cent of your staff likely have a disabled relative or someone in their close network with a disability. Would you want them to feel that their relative would be treated poorly as a customer simply because of their disability? The answer is always no. 

Key Reflections

A lot has been learnt in the six years of Purple Tuesday. These are covered in the following reflections:

• Organisations and their staff understand the importance of Purple Tuesday. The concept of delivering an excellent customer experience is well grasped. A powerful test is to consider if you would want your Aunt, Nephew, or partner to receive a poor experience at your organisation simply because they are disabled. Purple Tuesday offers a framework to address this.
• It starts with identifying who the disabled customer is. Initially, accessibility commitments focused on physical access, addressing the needs of wheelchair users and those with sensory impairments. Recently, commitments have increasingly catered to individuals on the neurodivergent spectrum, those with mental health conditions, long-term health conditions, and Cancer, alongside traditional accessibility improvements.
• Organisations and staff are beginning to explore the possibilities of what can be achieved through their commitments. Some popular examples include:

Quiet hours. acknowledging the needs of the neurodivergent spectrum community, and their families. and their popularity when moving from an early morning to early afternoon slot, as well as understanding it works for the wider community.

Adopting the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower lanyard scheme which has supported staff to be proactive with customers with hidden disabilities.

Mental health awareness training. We have seen a significant demand since Covid and lockdowns as the issue has become increasingly prevalent.

Digital access audits, particularly organisation’s website.

Frontline staff learning hello and goodbye in sign language.

Staff adopting the six second rule when, after asking a question, staff count to six in their head allowing the individual to process the question and speak the response, without someone jumping in and answering (incorrectly) on their behalf. This is particularly effective with those individuals on the neurodivergent spectrum or with a stammer.

• Clearly articulating and demonstrating the disability inclusion journey—from awareness to engagement—helps organisations understand their current position and identify commitments that best meet the needs of their disabled customers.
• The financial journey has evolved from reluctance to pay for services traditionally provided by charitable organisations to viewing alignment with Purple Tuesday as an investment in both customers and staff. There has been a shift from perceiving disability as a risk to recognizing it as an opportunity to enhance the brand and celebrate good practices as part of an ongoing journey, making it an integral part of the brand.
•  The focus on disability has moved beyond the diversity and inclusion team to the communications, marketing, and brand functions, which immediately see the value of Purple Tuesday.
• What benefits disabled customers will also benefit your disabled employees and improve your workplace. Accessibility is for everyone. If any of these reflections resonate with your organisation, join the Purple Tuesday journey.

The Voice of Disabled Customers

Start. Just start. Do something. This is the advice from disabled customers to organisations. Some organisations are already on the accessibility journey, but their efforts remain unnoticed by both staff and customers. Purple Tuesday provides a platform to showcase these achievements and to commit to further improvements.

For organisations with established connections to Purple Tuesday, the challenge is to be even bolder, to accelerate their ambitions, and to enhance their reputation as leaders fully committed to disabled customers. Become the trailblazers that others can follow.