Accessible services
Our Accessible services resource looks at how you can adapt your customer service to support autistic people.
Autism impacts on how people communicate and interact with the world. Autistic people have difficulties with interpreting both verbal and non-verbal language, such as gestures or tone of voice.
Some autistic people are unable to speak or have limited speech while other autistic people have very good language skills but struggle to understand sarcasm or tone of voice. Other challenges include:
- taking things literally
- needing extra time to process information or answer questions
- repeating what is said to them.
Autistic people often have difficulty ‘reading’ other people – recognising or understanding others' feelings and intentions – and expressing their own emotions. Autistic people may:
- appear to be insensitive
- appear to behave ‘strangely’ or in a way thought to be socially inappropriate.
Differences in communication and interaction can lead to challenges when accessing public businesses and services. There are a few simple steps that you can take to adapt your practices when working with autistic customers.
Accessible services – hints and tips
Staff training
One of the biggest barriers that autistic people face when visiting a new venue or using a new service is staff that are unsupportive because they have little or no understanding of autism. One of the best ways to support autistic people is to have staff with a good understanding of autism.
The National Autistic Society has a range of training packages available, including Understanding autism.
Alternatively, you could develop a bespoke training package. Topics that you could consider as part of your training include:
- identifying autism and how it affects people in different ways
- how to communicate with an autistic person
- sensory differences
- identifying how to change your practice and make changes within your workplace to effectively support people.
Autism champions
You could also consider having a group of staff to act as autism champions within your company or organisation, advising and supporting others. These staff may need more in-depth training and could:
- be the point of contact for an autistic person
- assist with any access arrangements
- answer autistic people’s questions and provide information in a suitable format
- help any autistic customers who may be feeling stressed or need further support
- deliver training to new staff members.
Make sure you let both your staff and your customers know how to contact an autism champion.
Ask autistic people
Finding ways of gathering feedback from autistic people can help to inform changes. You could contact your local National Autistic Society branch, a local special school or parents’ support group. You could consider using the topics within these guides to help you structure your feedback.
If you have any autistic employees you could use their insight to help you adapt what you do. Ask autistic visitors or employees to comment on:
- accessibility
- customer service
- environment
- information available – including ease of use or your website.
If you already collect feedback from customers, consider including questions about disability, if you don’t already, and ask specifically about autism. How you structure the questions will help autistic people to answer them and in turn help you to gain useful feedback.
- Ask specific questions that require specific details, for example, rather than how was your visit, ask did you enjoy your visit today?
- If you have questions that have more than one part, break them down into separate questions, for example: did you enjoy your visit? What did you enjoy about your visit?
- Keep language as simple and clear as possible. Only use necessary words, for example the toilets are located next to the…..?
- Consider having versions of questionnaires which have visual supports. Can you include pictures or images as part of the questionnaire?
- Keep questionnaires as short as possible and use rating scales.
Pre-visit information
Visitors may want information before coming to your venue. Having someone that they can talk to, to discuss the reasonable adjustments that are available can help to ease anxiety. Some visitors may want to have a pre-visit where they can come and have an initial look and leave prior to using the facilities available to them. Check out our information on making your information more accessible.
More information and useful links
Find out more about autism on our What is autism page.
Read our tips on communicating with autistic people.
Find out more about the training and consultancy we can offer your business.
National Autistic Society branches
There are 116 volunteer-led branches across the UK, covering three quarters of the country. They offer a range of support, information and social activities for autistic adults, children and families in their local area. You can contact your local branch for advice and support to make your business more autism-friendly or to involve autistic people in designing your services. There are also online branches for autistic people with a shared interest, identity or experience.
Northern Ireland Assembly
The Northern Ireland Assembly is developing its practice to make its building accessible for autistic people and achieving an Autism Access Award. Visit their website to read about their journey, which includes appendices on notes from an autism consultation group and recommendations of things to consider when preparing for the visit of an autistic person.
This Accessible services webpage is also available as a downloadable PDF.
Next steps
Accessible services checklist
Use our checklist (PDF format) to initially assess how autism-friendly your services are. It also includes our Accessible environments and Accessible information checklists. Please complete the form below to receive your free copy by return email.
Note: if you have already submitted this form on our Accessible environments or Accessible information webpages, you do not need to fill it in again.
By clicking submit you will receive the Accessible services checklist by email as well a link to a survey to assess how useful the information is to you. The survey is provided by Smart Survey. We will not use the information provided for any other purpose. Please see privacy notice for further details of how we manage your personal information. If you have any further questions, please contact our Supporter Care team on 0808 800 1050 or at supportercare@nas.org.uk. If you would like further information about how Smart Survey process data, please see their privacy policy.
We would like to thank the Kusuma Trust for funding the creation and publication of our autism-friendly guides, making this fantastic work possible. For more information about the Kusuma Trust and their impact in the UK, Asia and Gibraltar, please visit their website.
Would you like recognition for the changes you have made?
The National Autistic Society can provide you with recognition for the changes you have made and the positive customer experience that autistic people can expect from your business. The Autism Friendly Award will consider the experience you offer autistic people and award those businesses that meet a high standard of autism-friendly practice. The award will not only celebrate your work but also signify to autistic customers and their families that you are committed to them having the best experience whilst they visit you.
Find out more about Autism Accreditation and the Autism Friendly Award.