Nataly Parra
DIANA MARCELA PATIÑO BOHÓRQUEZ
STEVEN MORENO HUERTAS
Universidad Externado de Colombia
Gustavo A Yepes López
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Telefonica identified barriers for customers in accessing the different service channels.
Through the Relay Center and ConVerTIC (framed within the ICT and disability initiative), Telefonica is guaranteeing the fundamental rights of people with disabilities, especially those related to access to information and communications. These actions not only reduce the digital gap of millions of Colombians, but also make Telefonica Colombia worthy of recognition as the first Telco accessible in the country.
As Ricardo said " Our responsibility business plan, which is the roadmap of the sustainability strategy of the company is composed by 6 commitments and the first of these 6 commitments is the one of being reliable and reachable for everyone. Within that, we realized that one of the challenges that we didn’t have as a company was people with disabilities, how to actually be reachable as a company. So we started to think how were we serving our disabled population and we started a plan to adjust all our customer service channels to make them accessible to people with visual disability and people with hearing disability."
Telefonica Movistar has implemented different tools to offer the population with hearing and visual disability in Colombia the possibility of accessing the service channels prioritized by the Company (face-to-face and telephone channels). These are the tools:
- Serve people with visual and hearing disabilities through interpreters.
- Convert the web pages of Telefonica Movistar into accessible sites
- There is a call center that serves deaf people through virtual interpreters through an exclusive service line.
- Telefonica is the only accessible Telco in Colombia
The sustainability manager of the company explains in the interview the step-by-step process of implementation of innovation, based on continuous improvement in order to make easier the accessibility of people with visual and hearing disabilities in all its channels. "The first thing we did was to adjust the institutional trade portals of the company, namely Movistar.co and Telefonica.co, both portals are now accessible to people with visual disability conditions. There is a contrast topic with special software so that it can be seen, and, additionally, there is reading software of the webpage so that people with visual disabilities can access the information that is on the site. .. The other thing we did was to train. We started with 10 experience centers, the 10 experience centers with the greatest flow of people at the national level. We are already in 22 centers of experience. We train analysts, and we train analysts in priority attention to achieve these people. We always have an analyst prepared to assist people with hearing or visual impairment in the experience centers. We also created two care protocols for people with visual disabilities and people with hearing disability. We socialize and train all the analysts of these centers of experience, with these two protocols, what did we do now? The last thing we did was that we implemented an accessible call center for people with hearing disabilities in alliance with the TIC Ministry, The Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies in Colombia has a very valuable tool called the Relay Center, in which people with hearing disability are allowed to communicate with a sign interpreter, who can help with the process required by the person."
Telefonica, in order to generate a social impact in Colombia in an unattended target market as part of their social responsibility creating value to the societies where they operate, identified the need to establish a model of attention in the different channels for people with visual and hearing disabilities. Which effects are:
- Eliminate barriers to access customer service channels with hearing and visual disabilities.
- Connect people with technology
- Close gaps in information so that no one gets lost in a world of possibilities and challenges
Quoting Ricardo, "We have just decided to contribute from what we usually do, we believe that technology is transversal to all sectors and is transforming the world, in this case, we apply technology at the service of people in a disability condition so that all our clients have the better access to all our services and to not leave anyone behind, we believe that in this era of technological revolution is key to close gaps and one of the gaps that we had identified is precisely that of people in condition of hearing or visual impairment, because let's say It is not only the technological or digital gap, but also a gap in the inclusion of the economic development of a society, so from what we do, we are providing them with technological tools such as the relay center and virtual portals with software so that can access all the information we have."
Outside the organization:
- Bringing the unattended population to technology, which today can be handled quietly by telephone without the need for another person.
- In 2015, there were 3 million people in Colombia with permanent limitations. This has led us to occupy the first place in the prevalence of disability (6.3%), in relation to the countries of the region. The most common limitation is the common visual disability. In this sense, Telefonica is aware that the technological revolution is one of the most powerful tools in the active contribution to equal opportunities for people with disabilities.
Inside the organization:
- To be recognized by the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications as the first accessible Telco in Colombia.
- Within the company, the project won an award in the differential recognition program.
The sustainability manager refers to the impact as to improve the quality of life "How to make the information also accessible on our devices? From technology we are improving the quality of life of people, but also, this of course as I told you has a line of sustainability and strategy, then this also contributes to the business strategy, with this we are reaching a very important target market, according to him damages in Colombia there are approximately 3.000.000 of people in disability condition, we are reaching a target where before we did not arrive in an easy way, now we have all the tools to be able to take care of them and to not leave anyone behind."
It generates income because it is attracting a target market that is completely unprotected. This target also attracts family members and is the first telecommunications company in the country to have inclusive experience centers, which generates customer loyalty.
"Our sustainability and responsibility strategy is aligned to the strategic plan of the company, which aims to coordinate these two harmonically, we don’t expect the sustainability to go on a different path to the strategic objectives of the company, or that the strategic plan and the company focus just on achieving their goals and ignore how we achieve those goals," said Ricardo.
Technology nowadays is a great tool to close gaps of all kinds and that it will allow us, as a society, to get a better world.
In this part, we want to quote a powerful phrase from the CEO of Movistar, Fabian Hernandez:
"... Digital accessibility becomes a tool that contributes to the construction of the social impact in Colombia, allowing to generate changes to be an increasingly inclusive society. As an Onlife Telco we have the responsibility to connect people with technology, close the gaps in information so that no one gets lost in a world of possibilities and challenges, this includes those who have had limited access for years due to their condition. For us, the world has no limits and we want them to understand it and live it that way. "
Also the social responsibility manager in the interview said, "We know that technology accompanied by innovation are two key factors to build a better world and innovation is not only reduced to inventing a new product, but also can refer to finding new ways to use products that we already have, the project of Telefonica accessible telco It is not simply to invent a new process, but we have selected elements from different parts, tools that we already had, to build a new process of attention, this is also Innovation and we just believe that Innovation mixed with technology is what can enhance or improve the quality of life of people."
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Telefonica is a company that is aware of the new challenges posed by today’s society. This is why they offer the means to facilitate communication between people, providing them with the most secure and state of the art technology in order for them to live better, and for them to achieve whatever they resolve.
An innovative and attentive spirit with an immense technological potential that multiplies the ability to choose of its more than 322 million clients in 21 countries. Telefónica is a 100% listed company with more than one and a half million shareholders, traded in several of the most important stock markets around the world.
