The other day I said most accessibility statements have a contact email and most of them lead nowhere. I even made a joke about it yesterday.
What should happen when someone reaches out then?
Three things.
Number one, acknowledge it. Send a quick reply back, preferably within 48 hours. People contacting you about accessibility are often already frustrated. The least you can do is confirm a human received their message. Please try not to have a canned response.
Then actually look into it.
I know how obvious that sounds, but you won't believe how many of these emails land in a generic inbox and die there. Like with all things, someone needs to own it.
You don't have to fix it immediately. But you should respond with a proposed timeline. If the timeline is uncertain or you think it'll take too long, how can you make it right with an alternative or workaround?
And lastly, follow up. After you've fixed the issue, follow up with the person that brought it to your attention. Most people ignore this step.
Needless to say, this is a great time to update the accessibility statement as well.
The contact section of your accessibility statement is a promise. If you put an email there, you're saying that if anyone reaches out, you'll care enough to do something about it. When nobody replies, you break that promise. And the person on the other end is worse off than if the contact info wasn't there at all.
Don't make the accessibility statement a dead end.