Small Business - Big Advantage

I read an article recently that had been written by an Aussie guy called Brendon Sinclair. He runs a Web Development Company in Australia, and his company sounds like it is not too disimilar to ours in both size and structure. The way he operates his business also has a lot of similarities to the way we operate ours, so I find myself agreeing more often than not with his views (have you noticed how an article is far more enjoyable to read if you share the same viewpoint as the author!).

Brendon wrote an article recently called "Small Business, Big Advantage" explaining how Smaller Businesses could offer their customers a big advantage in customer support over large businesses or coporates.

He went on to say;
"The big advantage? Easy. Small business cares.
I care about my clients. I can't afford not to care. If I don't care, they won't keep paying me.
Big business doesn't care; the guy on the end of the phone still gets his paycheck no matter what happens with your web site. It's all about accountability."

Brendon went on to site a case where he was able to assist a client, who was in a panic because her domain name had expired causing her website to go offline at the weekend. He took her call at the weekend and was able to quickly resolve the situation and the client was back online within hours. His point was that a larger company would have kept her waiting until after the weekend before even taking a look.

He summed up by saying;
"If that domain name was managed by a small business, it would never had expired in the first place. A small business is far more likely to have a finger on the pulse, because its service is more personalized. A small business will know what's happening, who it's happening to, and what to do to fix it, averting this sort of problem."

Very true, I can fully relate to Brendon's viewpoint - we offer a personalised service and we know our customers on an individual basis, in fact we have forged good friendships with many of our customers over the years. They rely on us for advice and support and we don't want to let them down - after all nobody likes to see their friends in trouble!