Our Bromborough store has trialled a successful ‘Quiet Hour’ to help autistic customers and others who struggle with loud noises.
The store turned off the music, dimmed the lights and handed out maps of the store to make the shopping experience more comfortable for guests from Autism Together.
The store’s community champion Helen-Louise Sestan-Burton regularly helps the group and invited members including volunteer Alex, who’s autistic himself, to do their weekly shop during the trial.
Rick Myers, Autism Together fundraising manager, said: "The ‘Quiet Hour’ went really well; colleagues were very helpful, patient and understanding.
“The difficulties facing people with autism in large stores varies with each individual. But we find a lot of our members find shopping difficult because of the loud music and bright lighting, and the fact the store turned off music and dimmed the lights was a great help and made for a more positive experience for them.
“We’ve found they prefer using Scan & Go to the checkouts. It’s a mechanical, repetitive task which they find quite simple to use as opposed to waiting in a queue. They also can have problems with spacial awareness, so the maps helped too.
“Everyone really enjoyed the experience and I hope you can repeat it. Well done Asda.”
Helen-Louise regularly volunteers with the group as they’re currently involved in a project to transform Port Sunlight River Park from a landfill site to a community park, and recently received a £200 donation from the Asda Foundation.
“The trial went really well,” she said. “All of the colleagues have been really supportive and were happy to help out this fantastic group. All of the group enjoyed themselves and were pleased with the things we’d done.”
