Lessons From The Fortune 500 Small Companies Could Teach Enterprises a Thing or Two By Dayna Haberle-Delmonico Contrary to popular opinion, the core of our economy is NOT the Fortune 500, oops, make that the Global 500, but rather the American small businessıall 20 million plus of them. These are the companies that can really do more with less and adjust to hard times. They survived the great depression and the recession of the 1970's, and they will survive again. I already know that they use technology better than most large companies. More than 60% of small businesses have web connections. Their primary business uses for web are - to communicate with customers and partners via email, to educate themselves by keeping abreast of their industry and competitors, and for purchasing. Email is the most used web option, no surprise there. Email is linked to customer communications and thus customer service. It is customer service that keeps small businesses operating. Recent studies suggest that large companies miss the customer -- email connection. Big companies apparently ignore customers querying them by email. I know technology companies ignore journalists who send inquiries via their press room catchall address as in press@somecompany.com. Recent studies from Jupiter Research and Customer Respect Group tell a sad big biz tale of ignored and ticked off customers finding new outlets. According to Jupiter's Customer Service WebTrack Report: Firms are failing to meet customer expectations for service and information via e-mail, forcing people to turn to the telephone Of those using online routes to query a company, 91 percent are less likely to buy again after poor service 88 percent of surveyed consumers expected a response to e-mail inquiries within 24 hours, only 54 percent actually got them 29 percent of the companies took three days or more to respond, or never responded at all. Presumably, large companies have far more to respond to but they also have customer service staffs and the technology to provide these services. Jupiter estimates that spending on online CRM (customer relationship management), the category customer service falls into, will soar from $2.3 billion in 2003 to $4.7 billion in 2008. Actually using it effectively, however, seems to be a larger challenge. According to Customer Respect: 37 percent of Fortune 100 companies didn't bother to reply to customer requests submitted to Web sites In Fortune 500 and 1000 companies in the food, beverage, and tobacco areas, 55 percent of the companies didn't respond to customer queries submitted via the firms' Web sites. Of the 45 percent that did respond, only 29 percent responded within 24 hours, while one-in-10 took four days or more to get back to a customer. Just imagine if small businesses didn't respond to email or requests that came from their web sites. Now CRM is coming to the SMB masses (see Tech Short Cuts: Customer Technologies) and I'll just bet small biz does a better job than the big boys do with a more sophisticated technology geared to keep customers even happier. Dayna Haberle-Delmonico is Managing Editor of TechWeb Small Biz. Ready. Set. Grow! Trying to take a smaller company to the next level can be a relentless race—against the clock and the competition. Slowing down may not sound like an option, but there's a way to ease up and still stay ahead of the pack: the Emerging Enterprise Update. This free e-mail newsletter keeps you up to speed on the emerging strategies and solutions intended to help businesses bulk up. Is there a way to make sure that bigger business means better business? Part of the secret lies in stacking the odds in your favor by working with vendors and partners with a proven record of helping companies scale up without slowing down. But where do you find partners that can maximize your growth while minimizing your growing pains? They're only a click away, courtesy of the Sponsor Spotlight. More Media Kit   |   Privacy Statement   |   Feedback   |   Copyright © 2003    CMP Media LLC