Several criticisms were made on the basis that 40% of companies
were not adopting the internet as an effective means of
communication. Many sites made simple promises to customers and
investors but failed to carry them through.
This indicated that standards for dealing with customers over
the internet were considerably inferior to those adopted through
other mediums such as telephones, faxes and letters.
When Rainier requested basic investor information from the FTSE
100 companies, 29 could not even be reached by e-mail via their web
sites. Moreover, of those contacted, 20% including the National
Grid, P&O and Telewest did not respond within 3 months.
Similar results were obtained when the same exercise was carried
out on the Fortune 100 companies. Highly regarded firms that failed
to respond within the 3 month period included American Express,
Motorola and Walt Disney.
The managing director of Rainier, Stephen Waddington, reacted to
these results by commenting, “However you choose to cut the data,
this situation is a shock and quite appalling... you would think
that by now the world’s largest companies would have developed an
effective internet communication strategy”.
