Playbook, marketing agency
Our own site, and the sites we build for other people
This question arrives from two directions and an agency answering with one paragraph fails one of them. Somebody using a screen reader on the agency's own site wants to know how to get help and where to report a barrier. A prospect asking about accessibility wants to know whether what the agency produces meets a standard, whether campaign assets carry captions and alternative text, and who is responsible when they do not.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for accessibility requests holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- An agency is both a website owner and a supplier of websites, so one word covers a duty it owes its own visitors and a specification it sells to clients, and running them together reads as marketing.
- The prospect asking is usually buying against a standard named in their own procurement pack, so what they need is what the agency commits to and at whose cost, not a statement of good intentions.
- Campaign work has an accessibility surface with nothing to do with a website: captions on video, alternative text on images, contrast in a brand palette, a message that collapses when it is read as plain text.
- A barrier reported on a site the agency built belongs to the client's property, and the agency cannot promise a fix on something it does not control, however much it would like to.
How it arrives
- do you build sites that meet accessibility standards
- i cannot use your contact form with a screen reader
- do you caption the videos you produce
- is accessibility included or is it extra
- who fixes an accessibility problem on a site you built
- can i get this in large print or plain text
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Your own accessibility statement, with a way to report a barrier | What has been tested, what is known to be wrong, and an address that reaches a person. A statement with no reporting route was written for a procurement pack rather than for a visitor. |
|---|---|
| What you commit to on client work, and where it sits in the price | Which standard, at what level, tested how, and whether it is in scope by default or quoted as an addition. Prospects ask because an obligation of their own is being passed down the chain. |
| The accessibility of campaign assets | Captions, transcripts, alternative text, contrast in the palette, readable messages. Write it as a production standard rather than as a promise, because it is the part clients discover has been skipped. |
| How somebody asks for the agency's own material in another format | Large print, plain text, a document rather than a deck. Say who to ask and how long it takes, and mean the timescale you publish. |
The reply
There are two answers here. On our own site, the accessibility statement sets out what has been tested and what is known to be a problem, and it carries an address for reporting anything that blocks you [1]. On work we produce for clients, our published position says which standard we build to, how it is tested, and whether that sits inside a scope or is quoted separately [2]. If the difficulty is on a site we built for somebody else, that site belongs to them, so leave me your name and an email and we will point you to the right place.
It says there are two answers before giving either, because the visitor does not know which one they asked. The reporting address comes ahead of any claim about standards, since somebody currently stuck needs a route rather than a policy. And it is straight about a client's site being outside the agency's control instead of offering a fix nobody can deliver.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor is blocked on the agency's own site, reports a barrier on a site the agency built, or asks the agency to commit to a standard on a piece of work.
I can quote what we publish but not commit us to a standard or fix anything, and if you are stuck right now that needs a person. Leave your name and an email with what you were trying to do and somebody will come back to you.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never claim the agency's own site, or any site it built, is fully accessible or compliant.
- Never commit to a standard, an audit or a remediation on a piece of client work.
- Never say accessibility is included as standard unless the published scope says exactly that.
- Never treat a barrier report as logged, because nothing here files anything and the person will assume it was.
Questions
- Is it a problem that the assistant itself sits on our site?
- It is part of the surface you are being asked about, so it has to work by keyboard and read sensibly aloud, and the fallback message must make sense on its own. An accessibility answer delivered in an inaccessible box is the worst advertisement available.
- Can it log an accessibility issue for us?
- No. It takes a name, an email and a message and sends them to an address you choose. That is a notification rather than a ticket, so the reply should say a person will pick it up rather than imply a queue.
- Prospects ask us to sign up to a standard. Should it answer?
- Only by quoting what you publish. A commitment on a standard has cost and testing behind it, and an assistant agreeing to one in a chat has priced a piece of work nobody has scoped.
Keep reading
- Everything for a marketing agencyService definitions and engagement terms convert. A price quoted for work nobody has scoped is the trap on an agency site.
- Handling accessibility requests in generalTwo different things arrive as one message. A published accessibility statement answers the first. The second is a request, and it needs a person.
- What our hours mean when something is running all nightThe office closes at six. The spend does not. What to publish about cover, reporting days, and who is watching a live account overnight.
- Which payment failed, and how fast does it matterA retainer invoice that bounces is a finance matter. A card declining on an advertising account stops live delivery within hours.
- Who has access to what, when the accounts belong to the clientThe seats in question are on the client's own advertising and analytics accounts. Withdrawing them is the client's right, and often an accident.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.