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Serving up Great Customer Experiences for the Blind

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By: Wise Marketer Staff |

Posted on February 1, 2023

TCN creates solutions that serve this important population

Editor's Note:

We know this is not October, but this is important!

Each October is designated as Blindness Awareness Month. With 285 million people worldwide who are visually impaired, and 39 million of those completely blind, brands need to do everything in their power to be inclusive of this significant workforce. The problem is many companies don’t know where to start.

Fortunately, technology companies, like TCN are innovating to provide companies with the technology they need to be inclusive of this population. TCN is a global provider of a comprehensive cloud-based call center platform for enterprises, contact centers, BPOs, and collection agencies.

Since 2020, TCN has been partnering with agencies that strongly focus on employing people with vision loss. Even though it’s not October, this is a topic of note. We were able to connect with McKay Bird, Marketing Director at TCN to share insights into how people with Blindness can be included in the great Customer Experiences your brand is seeking to create.

Wise Marketer (WM): What’s the importance of the need to serve visually impaired workers?

McKay Birdare (TCN): In today’s world, being inclusive of all people regardless of sex, race and physical abilities is expected. With such a large population of the world being visually impaired, it would be highly detrimental to companies to not be able to offer them the same opportunities as everyone else.

WM: Is there an urgency to this situation?

TCN: Today there are almost 300 million people worldwide who are visually impaired, and 39 million of those people are completely blind. Combine this with the urgent need to fill many positions in today’s workforce, and it becomes critical that companies in all industries are as inclusive as possible for the disabled population.

Call centers are a prime example of an industry that wasn’t always accessible for visually impaired people as employees heavily rely on looking at a computer screen all day. Being able to deploy tech into these organizations that allow this population to excel in this industry just like their able-bodied counterparts will make these organizations stand out among their competitors when they are looking to attract the best talent.

WM: How TCN is solving for a solution to meet this need

TCN: We have optimized an award-winning contact center platform, TCN Operator, to work with Job Access With Speech (JAWS) and have made it accessible to agents everywhere. JAWS is the world’s most popular screen reader, developed for computer users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse.

All of TCN’s features and productivity tools are included and available for use with their visually impaired solutions by being customizable and cloud-based. More information on this feature can be found here.

WM: Can you share an example or two of how clients have implemented the solution?

TCN: Sure. We have been working with Beyond Vision, a 501(c)(3) self-funded, not-for-profit company with the mission of enriching the lives of people with vision loss through the dignity of work since 2014 to provide the critical technology they need to continue their mission. Once implementing TCN’s solution, Beyond Vision was able to increase the employment of visually impaired workers by over 400%.

Additionally, TCN has recently started working with Chicago Lighthouse, a world-renowned social service organization serving the blind, visually impaired, disabled and Veteran communities through innovative education, rehabilitation, employment, assistive technology, and other programs. The partnership will create a significant impact enriching the lives of the visually impaired population. Chicago Lighthouse was specifically looking to reduce the costs of the technology needed to serve their population and, at the same time, shift to a cloud-based system with better reporting tools. They have already seen much faster and more robust reporting and have found it much easier to customize for their clients.

WM: What’s your vision for TCN as it continues to serve this marketplace?

TCN:  TCN has always been on the forefront of innovation in the call center technology space. With that innovation, we are proud to keep inclusivity top of mind when launching new features and enhancements to our platform. Providing our clients with products that all agents can use just as effectively as others is paramount.