News

April 24, 2012

Almost one in five staff don't know their firm's web address

Almost one in five small-business employees can’t give their company’s website address when asked, according to research conducted by online savings website DealJungle.com.

An online poll of 500 staff at small businesses found that 18% were unable to give the correct URL. Although 82% could give the main body of the web address, almost half of these (47%) were unsure whether it ended with .com or .co.uk.

Yet virtually everyone quizzed said that a website was essential to the future of their company and all respondents could give their work email address — and 95 per cent were able to recall their desk telephone number.

Tom Michaels, founder of DealJungle.com, described the survey results as “astonishing”. “For many workers their firm’s web address is all around them — on business cards, headed paper, even as part of their email signature — yet it seems many people just go about their daily business oblivious,” he said. 

“While we might laugh at some workers being unable to name their company’s website there are more serious business implications such as making it more difficult to direct new leads to the correct place when questioned,” Michaels added.

Customer service expert Derek Williams of The Wow! Awards said the results could indicate that businesses were failing to ensure staff knew everything they needed to know about the company.

“What worries me is what else don’t they know? It’s interesting how we expect people to do the job and don’t give them the basic tools,” he said. “The first thing that springs to mind is to give every employee their own business card.

“It’s a shame we don’t get some of those details right and don’t always do things systematically before we put people onto the front line.”

Michaels pointed out that many employees may have bookmarked their company page or have it set as their homepage, therefore removing the need to learn it. “But for many firms a key corporate responsibility is drilling the company’s web address — which is often their business name — into the minds of their employees,” he said.