UK small companies lose £12,000 in revenue per day that phone access fails
The loss in potential revenue to a UK small business of not having access to their mobile phones for even one day could be as much as £12,000, new research for Vodafone UK has revealed.
In a poll conducted for Vodafone by YouGov surveying more than 1,000 small British businesses with up to nine employees, senior decision makers estimate on average they would miss out on over three new business opportunities in a working day when their work mobile is out of action.
According to the YouGov research, the average new business opportunity is worth £3,173, and small businesses that have a work mobile and that think they would lose a new business opportunity if they did not have their work mobile phone during an average working day, estimate they would lose 3.88 opportunities in a day.
This means each business faces a potential loss of around £12,000-worth of new work each day they are phoneless.
With a whopping two thirds (67%) of small business owners and employees surveyed claiming their mobile phone is vital to the running of their organisation, losing a work mobile or finding it damaged or out of action could lead to major opportunity loss for UK businesses. One in five (20%) of respondents has had their phone lost, stolen or damaged rendering it unusable for business and yet, despite the importance businesses place on their work phone, more than half (55%) do not have business phone insurance.
Losing potential revenues on this scale would have a significant impact on the bottom line of the UK’s millions of small businesses as well as delivering a blow to the UK economy, stated Vodafone.
To help get businesses back up and running as quickly as possible when their mobile is lost, stolen or damaged, Vodafone UK is launching Vodafone Rapid, a new service to get replacement phones into the hands of small businesses within four hours of an approved claim being made on an existing insurance policy. [Ed: The phones are to be delivered by a person that Smart Chimps hereby refers to as Vodafone Stig.]
Furthermore, for every hour beyond the four hours Vodafone will give a small business £10 (up to a maximum of £40). In what will be a first for the UK, the new service will see mobiles delivered by dedicated scooters in London and by courier to addresses across the rest of the country.
Phil Mottram, enterprise director at Vodafone UK, said: “When the potential loss of new business opportunities equates to billions of pounds for small businesses country-wide, and more importantly could mean that a small business misses out on that vital call, it’s business critical to get replacement phones into the hands of business owners as quickly as possible when they find their mobile is lost, stolen or damaged. This is where Vodafone Rapid comes in, getting the country’s small business population back up and running with a replacement phone within just four hours.”
