UK Business Barometer

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In the June 2006 survey we invited panellists to give their views on dealing with complaints, truthfulness, trust, language skills of exporters plus the quarterly trends questions. The trends charts from the responses to the regular quarterly questions can be found on the project's website www.ukbab.ac

In total 198 Advisers responded to this Survey.

Survey Findings

It is said that people who have a bad customer service experience will tell up to 25 others about it, but if a company gets it right, it can result in greater customer loyalty. Advice from management gurus is to deal with complaints quickly and ensure that the customer is satisfied, and to have a procedure in place so that any/all employees understand how to react. 62% of UKBAB respondents have a formal system for dealing with complaints but 30% admit that they don't. 8% say it is not applicable. The parallel survey of smaller businesses, the UKBB, put the identical question and found that 53% of respondents have a formal system in place.

When asked to what extent records of complaints and responses were kept, 77% of UKBAB respondents said always, while 10% said most of the time. Amongst UKBB respondents, 61% said always, and 22% said most of the time, after adjusting for the 14% responding 'not applicable'.

How to deal with complaints does not seem to be a particularly pressing issue for smaller businesses, since 66% of UKBAB respondents are rarely or never asked for advice on this by their clients.

Business ethics and corporate social responsibility have come more and more into focus as issues such as fair trade and sustainability rise up the national and international agendas. Underlying such concepts are values such as truthfulness and trust.

85% of UKBAB respondents agree that truthfulness is always important in business. The parallel survey of smaller businesses, the UKBB, asked about the importance of truthfulness in their own business, and 84% thought that it is always important. However, some respondents in both surveys recognized that there is some flexibility in sales and marketing (7% of BAB respondents, 12% of BB respondents). 9% of UKBAB respondents believe that no business could afford to be wholly truthful, and 4% of UKBB respondents agreed with them.

Feedback from respondents included the opinion that this question was posed in a too definite form. The commentator said that there should be no lies told, but there are different levels of truth including saying nothing. Another comment quoted a bank manager who said that people are as honest as they can afford to be. This commentator feels that this still pervades.

Compared to responses to the previous question, an even greater percentage of UKBAB respondents believe that trust is important for succssfulB2B relationships: 99% answered 'highly' or relatively highly. UKBB respondents to the same question were also strong in responses, with 95% answering 'highly' or relatively highly, and only 5% came in at lower levels, with none saying 'not at all'.

Although English and Chinese are thought to be the languages of globalisation, research has found that in mainland Europe many companies will not employ a UK firm for a pan-European account because of a perceived lack of European language skills. 34% of UKBAB respondents think that more than half of their clients involved in exporting are disadvantaged by their lack of language skills, while only 27% would put the proportion of similarly disadvantaged clients at 10% or less. 47% of responding advisers do not think there is sufficient language support available for businesses, although 30% think that support is adequate for French, German, Spanish and Italian. One comment said that the difficulty is in accessing language services - once clients have gained access they are not too much of a problem.

Trends Questions

The average number of clients seeking business advice decreased in the second quarter although the number of advisers experiencing increases in enquiries continued to outpace the number experiencing decreases in enquiries.

Respondents to the March survey witnessed an overall decrease in the number wanting to start a business in the June quarter of 2006, following the seasonal pattern of the previous three years.

The ability to gain access to finance was lower by 4% compared to the March quarter. This is a larger variation quarter on quarter for this indicator than seen over the previous three years.

The index of the number of Advisers' clients finding that there is a shortage of skilled labour increased by nearly 4% on average during the second quarter, following an increase in the first quarter.

In the June quarter, Advisers were again on average slightly more pessimistic about the continuance of their clients trading over the next year. Although 12% of Advisers now consider that none of their clients will close over the next year (11% last quarter), 72% thought that up to 10% of their clients might cease trading compared with 75% in the first quarter and there was an increase in expectations of higher numbers of business cessations: 16% in June, compared with 14% in March.

Views expressed are those of individual panellists and may not represent those of the University.

Shortage of skilled labour - in a market economy if you pay more, lots more sometimes, you can nearly always get as much skilled labour as you need - even within 2 months. My experience is if you increase pay by 50% above the market rate the skilled labour you need appears. Most employers are just mean.

Changes in central funding and finance available through RDA's are of concern. Clarity of what is available needs resolved sooner rather than later.

The question about truthfulness was too black and white. There should indeed be no lies told, but there are different levels of truth (including saying nothing).

The problem with language services is that clients are not initially aware of how they can access them, once accessed not too much of a problem.

Complaints tend to be kept in the proprietor's head and not recorded formally, so advisers have no way of seeing how complaints are dealt with in reality.

Rather rough and ready and it is difficult to be precise. Export is not a large area amongst our clients ho are mainly UK based. There has been a gradual uptake but it is still rather insignificant currently. We are not sure whether honesty is answered as we would like or what it is in practice. A Bank manager once said people are as honest as they can afford to be. We feel this still pervades.

I love doing these surveys and seeing what other peoples experiences are. Sometimes you pose questions that make me think I should be collecting or using data in a different way, so you are actively helping me evaluate my own business practice. I hope my input is likewise helping other businesses. I wish I had a way of feeding back to the government that funding for business start up and start up business advice is crucial to its success.