Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) is continuing to deliver on its commitment to provide an inclusive and accessible service to the 3.8 million homes and businesses it serves by adding specialist accessibility and language software to its website.
The award-winning toolbar, called ReciteMe, includes text-to-speech functionality, dyslexia software, tools to help people with sight loss, an interactive dictionary and a translation tool with over 100 languages available, including a read aloud function for those most commonly spoken.
Customers can use the toolbar to customise the site to suit their preferences, including changing the font sizes and text colour, which will help people with visual impairment and dyslexia to read quicker and easier. The site's background colour can also be customised so those with dyslexia will be able to access SSEN's content up to 25% faster with this feature.
The toolbar also includes functions to download text as an audio MP3, mask or magnify parts of the page and even give detailed definitions of complicated wording.
Lisa Doogan, Director of Customer Relationship Management at SSEN, said:
"We are delighted to install the ReciteMe toolbar on ssen.co.uk which forms part of an ongoing commitment to ensure the service we provide is truly inclusive to all. This new feature builds on our Sitemorse ranking as 1st in the industry for accessibility and means our customers can fully customise our website to digest information in the format most suitable for their needs."
"With our newly formed Inclusive Service Panels helping us inform and influence our decision making, we are looking to continuously improve the service we provide, making it as fair, accessible and inclusive to everyone we serve. With over 9,000 visitors to our website last year using a non-English language and 6.1m people in the UK with disabilities having online access needs, we believe this feature will enable our customers to experience our website positively."
Richard Shakespeare, Equality and Disability Expert and Independent Chair of SSEN's Inclusive Service Panels, added:
"Enabling customers to access your website is key to improving the customer service journey. SSEN has shown a real commitment to inclusive service provision by installing the ReciteMe toolbar onto their site. As part of their ongoing work to ensure SSEN is able to meet the diverse needs of their customers, the business has established service panels to gather insight and expertise on all aspects of their diversity agenda."
"The Internal and External Inclusive Service Panels reviewed online accessibility and approved the addition of ReciteMe unanimously. The SSEN website is already sector leading for accessibility and I'm sure the addition of this easy to use toolbar that fives simple options to further improve customer experience will be a valuable addition for customers."
Those visiting SSEN's website will now see an accessibility button which unlocks the full set of features to meet the diverse needs of its customers in the north of Scotland and central southern England. To access the new toolbar, click on Accessibility at ssen.co.uk.