On this page

• Overview
• Acknowledging feedback
• Preserving copies of feedback
• Organizing and analyzing feedback
• Taking feedback into consideration

Overview

The description of feedback processes must include how your organization will receive and deal with feedback about the implementation of your accessibility plan or about barriers people encounter. Your feedback process description should explain to contributors what they can expect to happen when they send you feedback.

You can read the guidance sections on receiving feedback and on publishing your description. This guidance section provides tips, recommendations and best practices for dealing with feedback.

The Accessible Canada Act (ACA) and its regulations set some requirements for how you must deal with the feedback you receive. Among other things, you must:

• acknowledge your receipt of all non-anonymous feedback by the same means in which you receive it
• keep electronic or print copies of all feedback you receive for at least 7 years from the day on which you receive it
• provide information, under the “Feedback” heading in your progress report, about the feedback you receive and how you take it into consideration

Nevertheless, organizations have different resources, needs, and capabilities. They serve different clients and provide different services. As such, the ACA and its regulations do not mandate any one specific way in which you must:

• respond to contributors beyond acknowledging receipt of their feedback
• take that feedback into consideration
• organize that feedback and plan any actions you will take as a result

You will choose how to approach these actions in a way that best reflects the principles set out in section 6 of the ACA. You will also choose how feedback informs your efforts to identify and remove existing barriers, and to prevent new barriers from forming.

This guidance section provides some tips, recommendations and best practices for how your organization could approach these decisions.

Acknowledging feedback

Your organization must acknowledge your receipt of any non-anonymous feedback. This means that you must communicate with the feedback contributor to confirm that you received their feedback.

You must send this acknowledgement in the same means by which you received it. These means include mail, telephone, email, or any other means your organization uses to communicate with the public.

As you establish your process for acknowledging feedback, here are some additional recommendations:

• your feedback process could set the service standards and timeline for when you will send acknowledgements or any other responses
  • you should acknowledge feedback as quickly as possible after you receive it
• consider sending a personal acknowledgement rather than relying on automatic or generic acknowledgements
  • you should address the contributor by name, thank them for their submission, and acknowledge the specifics of their feedback
  • you may also follow up with more detailed replies once those responsible for implementing your accessibility plan have assessed the feedback
• offer to add contributors (with their consent) to contact lists for future accessibility announcements, consultation planning, or other events

Preserving copies of feedback

The regulations require that you retain a copy of each piece of feedback you receive. You must retain that feedback, in electronic or print form, for a period of 7 years beginning on the day that you receive it. You must retain feedback even when it is anonymous.

How you choose to preserve electronic or print copies of feedback will depend, in part, on the means by which you receive it. Here are some things we recommend that you keep in mind:

• while feedback you receive by email or by mail will already be in an electronic or print format, consider making copies for security and consistency
• preserving an electronic or print copy of feedback you receive by telephone will require that you create either a transcript or a recording
  • the process you establish for receiving feedback could include how you plan to produce and verify the accuracy of such transcripts or recordings
  • ensure that feedback contributors are aware that their telephone conversations with your representatives could be recorded, if applicable
• preserving feedback you may receive by other means your organization uses to communicate with the public may also require additional planning and training
  • for example, plan to save copies of feedback you receive through means like social media platforms, keeping in mind that:
    • the original submissions may not remain accessible online indefinitely
    • contributors may also remove or edit their original submissions
    • some contributors may submit non-text feedback by these means (such as through video recordings or images)

As you preserve and categorize feedback, you could also keep a record of how you respond to that feedback. This is especially important if you respond to feedback with more than an acknowledgement, or act on it soon after you receive it. It can also help you set out information, under your progress report’s “Feedback” heading, about feedback you received and how you took it into consideration.

We recommend that you keep a chronological list or log of feedback you receive and of anything you do as a result of that feedback. You could account for some or all of the following, when applicable:

• for all feedback:
  • who sent it, what it said, and when you received it
  • who within your organization responded to it, and what that response was
  • what anyone within your organization did about the feedback, including any costs or resources this involved
• for feedback on the implementation of your accessibility plans:
  • when you published the version of the plan that the feedback addressed
  • what aspect of the plan the feedback addressed
  • what the person(s) responsible for implementing the plan said or did about this feedback
• for feedback on barriers:
  • the nature and location of the barrier
  • the relevant area from section 5 of the ACA under which the barrier might fit
  • what was done to remove the barrier, and by whom
  • what was done to prevent the creation of new barriers in the process of addressing the barriers that the feedback identified

Remember to respect and preserve the privacy of anyone who submits feedback to your organization.

Organizing and analyzing feedback

You may receive and consider feedback in multiple forms, including written submissions, phone calls, emails, or others. To analyse feedback, you may have to compare different types of feedback in a way that allows you to respond to them consistently and effectively.

One approach is to categorize and sort feedback by creating metadata, or short descriptive tags, for each piece of feedback. A simple way to think about metadata is that it is “information about information.” This might include, when applicable:

• the element of your accessibility plan that the feedback addresses
• the type of barrier it identifies
• the length and depth of the feedback
• the relevant areas in section 5 of the ACA
• whether it is positive, negative or neutrally informative
• who sent the feedback, and when

It can help to compile these details into a basic data entry system or spreadsheet. Organizing your feedback in this way can help you describe it more accurately, such as under your progress report’s “Feedback” heading.

For example:

• “35 out of 40 feedback submissions say that removing attitudinal barriers is just as important as removing physical barriers”
• “85% of feedback contributors said we have made significant progress in implementing our accessibility plan”
• “contributors with learning disabilities were 3 times more likely than others to say our website needs significant accessibility improvements”

This basic data may help you find trends or even gaps in how people are responding to your organization’s efforts to improve accessibility.

Taking feedback into consideration

The ACA requires that your progress reports include information about the feedback you receive through your feedback process and how you take it into consideration. How you take feedback into consideration could depend on:

• the topic and nature of the feedback you receive
• the resources, including employees, available to your organization
• when you receive that feedback within your planning and reporting cycle
• what will best support your efforts to identify, remove, and prevent barriers

We recommend that you consider feedback within the context of your obligations under the ACA and its regulations. When you develop a consistent and effective approach to how you consider feedback, it ensures that feedback can help you:

• identify, remove, and prevent barriers to accessibility in your organization
• better fulfill your planning and reporting requirements, such as reporting on progress in implementing your accessibility plan
• refine and improve how you consult persons with disabilities in preparing your accessibility plans and progress reports
• ensure that the planning and reporting documents you publish are accessible, informative, and written in language that is simple, clear and concise