While e-mail is touted as an instantaneous communication tool, a recent survey found that some companies which offer consumers an e-mail link on their websites make no use of it at all or take so long to reply that they might as well just instruct people to send a letter.
According to the survey sponsored by e-mail response software company, Brightware, 58 per cent of the top 55 Irish websites failed to respond to an email message after a week. Of the 42 per cent which did reply, some of the slowest included Marks and Spencer (four days), Aer Rianta (three days), Fyffes (four days) and the EBS (three days).
The fastest responses came from Ulster Bank (40 minutes), Jurys Hotels, ESB and ISS Group (an hour and a half), and Coillte (an hour and 45 minutes). Overall, of those companies that replied, 11 took less than three hours, two took between three hours and a day, and nine took one to three days to respond.
The companies were all e-mailed a message stating that the sender was a regular customer but would like the name and address of the company's managing director in order to make a complaint.
"While the Internet heralds the age of interactive marketing, e-mail is a sadly neglected tool by many Irish companies," said Brightware managing director of international business, Mr Michael Wheatley.
