The Open University’s latest Quarterly Survey of Small Business in Britain has just been published. The headline finding I suppose is “a glimmer of hope that the worst of the deepest slump in the 25 year history of this survey may be over.” But lots of other fascinating findings. How about this:
Regular respondents were asked “in which forms do you think business advice and information can best be supplied?” and the results tracked from 2002. Paper pamphlets down from 45% to 27% and news media static at around 28%. E-mail updates were up from 30% to 64% and information on websites up from 48% to 62%. All very predictable.
But telephone helplines were down from 33% to 25% and “face to face contact with an adviser” was actually up from 63% to 71%.
So despite the huge push to promote websites, the face-to-face channel actually increased in importance.
How do you explain this? We’ll all have our theories. My guess is that people are looking at Internet based information, but then looking for a trusted human face to help them interpret and explain it. The business adviser role has lots of life left in it!