Superdrug, owned by AS WATSON Group, has announced a ground-breaking partnership with CityMaaS, the innovative tech company specialised in digital accessibility, to significantly enhance the online experience for disabled customers and the ageing population. By integrating CityMaaS’ Assist Me tool into their website and committed to have their online presence to be compliance with WCAG. Superdrug becomes one of the first major health and beauty retailer to commit to providing a fully inclusive and accessible online presence.
Superdrug’s Journey
Superdrug’s journey with accessibility has been focused on creating an inclusive and welcoming brand for all customers. They have recognised the importance of ensuring that their stores, products, and services are accessible to individuals with diverse abilities.
Superdrug have taken several steps to improve accessibility within their stores, implementing various physical modifications (such as installing ramps, wider aisles, and accessible
toilets) to accommodate customers with mobility challenges. Superdrug have also trained their staff to aid and support to customers with disabilities, ensuring a respectful and helpful shopping experience.
Expanding their product offerings to cater diverse needs and actively engaging with advocacy groups & organisations to gain insights and feedback on how to continually improve their practices and using it as a driving force behind their ongoing efforts to enhance accessibility.
Superdrug is also proactively addressing digital accessibility and made efforts to optimise their website and mobile app to be more accessible. This is where their relationship with CityMaaS has begun.
Who is CityMaaS?
CityMaaS, a Microsoft UK’s AI for Good accelerator programme participant, is a world-class provider of web accessibility. Leading a mission to bring social impact for the disabled community and deliver profits for all businesses around the world. Co-Founded by Rene and Andy Perkins, they have built a team of experts around a core vision that fuels innovation and change in a market segment that has been side-lined. As a disability confident employer, CityMaaS not only champions an inclusive world, epitomising a vision of equality.
CityMaaS’s product Assist Me aids the user to personalise the way they view a website with one line of code for you to add. CityMaaS also provide an Automatic Web Accessibility Reporting Engine (AWARE) that will additionally help to identify the issues that no automated service can fix. This is available for a 14 day free trial via the CityMaaS website.
Partnership Together
Now available on the Superdrug website is CityMaaS’s Assist Me product and can be viewed in all browsers and devices. By clicking on the pink & white person icon on the left-hand side, Assist Me will pop up with options for the user to tailor their individual website experience to their visual, hearing, physical or cognitive needs.
CityMaaS’s Assist Me solution is designed to help businesses comply with the international WCAG 2.1 AA standards, which ensure digital content is accessible to all users, including the 1.3 billion people worldwide with disabilities. By integrating Assist Me, Superdrug aims to decrease cart abandonment rates thereby increasing revenue and customer retention, whilst also meeting global accessibility standards and compliance requirements.
Since going live on 1st June 2023, over 300,000 individual users of Assist Me on Superdrug.
This is the start of an exciting relationship between CityMaaS and the AS WATSON Group, “CityMaaS is thrilled to be part of Superdrug’s journey to digital inclusivity,” commented the CEO of CityMaaS. “Our collaboration is more than a partnership; it’s a step towards a world where the Internet is accessible to all, irrespective of physical or sensory abilities. We’re excited to contribute to the AS WATSON Group’s commitment to inclusivity and accessibility.”
AS Watson, dedicated to creating an inclusive customer experience, is proud to partner with CityMaaS. “Inclusivity and accessibility are at the heart of AS WATSON Group’s ethos. This partnership with CityMaaS, utilising their Assist Me tool, allows us to further extend our commitment to inclusivity beyond our physical stores and into our digital platforms, ensuring all customers can enjoy a seamless and accessible online shopping experience,” stated the Group’s Managing Director.
CityMaaS and Superdrug, part of the AS WATSON Group, invite businesses to join them in championing digital accessibility, making the internet a more inclusive space for everyone.
For more information, visit http://www.citymaas.io and http://www.superdrug.com.
Read other publications on the partnership here: