10 ways to promote inclusive customer service in retail stores
With 1 in 4 people in the UK living with a disability, inclusive customer service in retail matters more than ever. Frontline staff play a key role in creating positive experiences for disabled customers. The way they communicate and offer support can build trust and loyalty, or lead to frustration and disengagement. This is why customer-facing teams need the confidence and skills to provide great service to everyone.
A poll* conducted by Business Disability Forum (BDF), the leading business membership organisation in disability inclusion, in December 2025 indicated that over a third (37 per cent) of disabled people said their consumer experience would improve if staff had a greater understanding of disability and how it affects their needs as a customer.
The poll also indicated that 1 in 5 (22 per cent) disabled people say they find it harder to access good customer service compared to someone without a disability.
At BDF, we work with retail organisations that employ thousands of in-store workers who interact with countless disabled customers every day. In recent months we’ve been working with our Member and Partner organisations to understand the barriers retail customers may experience – and how to equip staff with greater awareness and confidence around inclusive customer service.
BDF’s top tips for engaging in-store staff with disability inclusion
Here are some key tips for reaching and engaging your in-store staff to build confidence in inclusive customer service:
1. Simple, accessible guidance
Provide guidance in simple and accessible language to make it easy to understand for all retail staff regardless of age, cultural background and knowledge of disability.
2. Range of formats
Offer a wide range of bite-sized formats to reflect individual learning styles, and the very busy working days of in-store staff. This might include quick reference digital guides, videos and short fact sheets, all of which can be accessed on an ad hoc basis.
3. Locations and access
Staff need to be able to find resources quickly, so think about when you want workers to access materials. Place resources in logical, well-used locations, such as familiar areas of the staff intranet, and label them clearly so that they are intuitive to find.
4. Staff briefings
Daily staff huddles can be an ideal opportunity to bring colleagues together and run a focused 10-minute briefing on common barriers customer may experience and how staff can help to remove these.
5. Internal communication channels
Regular, visible communication is far more effective than a single announcement – especially when the goal is to change behaviours, build awareness, and embed values like inclusion into everyday work.
6. Staff inductions
Build a disability-inclusive customer culture from day one by introducing disability inclusion resources as part of staff induction programmes. Managers or HR leads can reinforce these messages during early check-ins, helping to embed inclusive practices before habits form.
7. Individual objectives
Drive engagement with inclusive customer practices by building them into individual performance objectives that focus on service excellence and inclusive practice.
8. Employee networks
Employee networks such as disability, neurodiversity, or accessibility groups – are powerful allies. Engaging these groups not only helps spread awareness but also sparks richer internal conversations and creates a feedback loop to strengthen your wider inclusion strategy.
9. Disability and health awareness days
Disability and health awareness days can be a useful platform to promote guidance as part of a wider inclusion strategy, because they naturally draw attention to issues of accessibility, equity, and support for people with disabilities.
10. Feedback channels
Listening to staff feedback about their interactions with disabled customers is crucial for driving meaningful improvements in accessibility and customer service.
How Business Disability Forum can support you
BDF’s new desk-free resources, offer practical advice and tips on all these scenarios.
To reflect the busy life of a store worker, guidance is offered in bite-sized chunks – via short videos, guides, and factsheets. For store managers, we provide off-the-shelf briefing packages which can be used in daily staff huddles.
These resources have been created with major retailers including Primark.
“Having resources available in bite sized content in different formats will support colleagues’ learning around providing a more accessible shopping experience for our customers.”
Paul Walker – EDI Lead, Primark
Find out more about disability inclusion for desk-free workers
Find out more about the desk-free workers resources: Disability inclusion for Desk-Free Workers | Business Disability Forum. And if you are a Member or Partner organisation, your assigned business partner can guide you in the roll-out of these bite-sized inclusion resources.