Imagine receiving an invoice you can’t read, struggling with an online form that doesn’t work with your screen reader, or getting frustrated with a chatbot you simply don’t understand. For 4,5 million Dutch people with disabilities, this is their daily reality.
And from June 28, 2025, this will also become a serious concern for your organization, if you do not comply with the European Accessibility Act (EAA). That is why you can read exactly how to get started with this in this article!
What does digital accessibility really mean?
When we talk about digital accessibility, many people immediately think of websites. But the reality is much broader. From invoices and contracts to customer portals, emails and PDF documents – everything you share digitally needs to be accessible. It’s about making all digital communication with customers usable for everyone – whether they have a disability or not.
The group of people with disabilities is larger than you might think:
- 1,6 million people with a motor disability
- 1,5 million low-literate people
- 1,1 million people with a mild intellectual disability
- 800.000 people with dyslexia
- 700.000 people with color blindness
- 1 million people with hearing or visual impairments
It is therefore not surprising that research shows that 80% of customer service experiences for people with disabilities are currently negative. After all, what good is an accessible website if you then receive an unreadable invoice or are unable to fill out a form?
Not a one-off project
Many organizations approach accessibility as a tedious compliance task that they have to tick off. A project that they do once. But that is a missed opportunity.
Although the EAA will come into effect on 28 June 2025, it will not be static after that and will continue to evolve in the future. Moreover, this change will affect almost every aspect of your business – from marketing to IT, from customer service to production. Without clear central direction, it will be a fragmented approach that does not really help anyone.
The first steps towards digital accessibility
So, where do you start? It may sound overwhelming, but the key is to keep it simple and take immediate action. Start with our EAA scan to map out exactly where you are now and what the priorities should be.
A logical approach is:
- Tackle static documents first (terms and conditions, brochures)
- Then move on to transactional documents (invoices, contracts)
- Create a plan for continuous improvement
Did you know that approximately 95% of your customer communications consists of transactional documents? This presents a huge opportunity to make a difference.
From must want: better customer experience for everyone
"How far should we go?" is a question we often hear – usually from a cost perspective. But turn it around: what if digital accessibility wasn't a cost, but an investment in a better customer experience for all customers?
A good example: the lowered curbs that municipalities had to install for wheelchair users also turned out to be a solution for parcel deliverers and postmen. What is good for people with a disability often makes the experience more pleasant for everyone else.
A smart central approach: accessibility as a service
One of the biggest challenges is that the EAA touches so many different systems within your organization. From your CRM system to your marketing tools – they all produce documents that need to be accessible. Customizing all of these sources individually is not only complex and costly, but also difficult to keep consistent.
A more efficient approach is "accessibility as a service"—a single, central solution that makes all outgoing documents accessible, regardless of their source. This ensures consistency in your accessibility policy and keeps document file sizes manageable (up to 30 times smaller than with non-specialized tools).
Ready for the next step?
Ultimately, it's all about the customer experience. The question is not whether you need to comply with the EAA, but how you get the maximum benefit from it for both your customers and your own organization.
Would you like to know what the European Accessibility Act means for your organisation? Contact us For an EAA scan or request a demonstration of our accessibility-as-a-service solution, we'll work together to ensure you're not only compliant but also truly delivering a better customer experience to all customers.
