Proposed Customer Service Standard
By Doug Momotiuk,
MAAC Representative
November 19, 2014
You remembered
that the Accessibility for Manitobans Act became law on December 5, 2013. This
purpose of the legislation is to provide a process for the identification,
preventation and removal of barriers that prevent people disabled by barriers
from full participation.
It will accomplish
this procession to develop standards on customer service, information and
communication, transportation, employment and the built environment.
As customer
service is the first standard to be developed, the Minister agreed that the
Council should be on the role of the Customer Service Standard Development
Committee to work leading to application of the legislation.
This Committee has
been meeting regularly since February 2014. We provided to the public on the
government’s website. The ideas, questions and concerns were collected and
considered in the preparation of this Proposed Customer Service Standard.
In April 2014, the
Committee released the Discussion Paper on an Initial Proposed Customer Service
Standard. They also collected feedbacks and concerns from the stakeholders and
the public consultations on June 17-18, 2014 that more than 150 people attended
the two day event and also webcast.
The Customer
Service Standard Recommendation now has the purpose and application, effective
dates, establishment of policies, practices and procedures, use of support
persons, use of service animals, notice of temporary disruption, training for
staff, feedback process for providers of goods or services, notice of
availability of documents, format of documents and compliance.
The example is
that the organizations with 20 or more employees must have the
policies/practices/procedures and trainings on how to communicate with Deaf
people at customer services at the Government of Manitoba, every government
agency and all private and non-profit organizations. The other example is that
colleges and universities’ support services or customer services make sure if
there are qualified sign language interpreters at Deaf students’ classes or
meetings. The other example is to have full accessibility of communication
between doctors and Deaf patients/families with qualified sign language
interpreters in person or by video interpreters at hospitals.
We forwarded the
Committee’s recommendations on a Proposed Customer Service Standard to the
Minister.
