Taking too long to respond to an email is a major cause for many businesses to miss out on attracting more customers, a new study has found.

A survey of 1,300 British consumers, conducted by web hosting provider Fasthosts Internet, found a slow response to a customer's email enquiry will immediately lead to nearly 90 per cent of people turning to a competitor to answer their query.

More than three-quarters of respondents in the study confirmed that they had been left disappointed by a slow email response time, with the average consumer often having to send three emails out before receiving a satisfactory response and unhappy if they are left to wait for more than 24 hours.

"It is clear that businesses of all sizes can incur real damage by responding slowly to customer emails. Whilst most recognise that email is an important form of communication with their market, the majority remain misinformed about the kind of effects that poor email practices can have on their business," commented Mark Jeffries, chief technical officer at Fasthosts.

"Both consumers and businesses have much to gain from more swift email communication. British SMEs can see great returns from investing in the way they handle customer emails."

Over 90 per cent of those surveyed also admitted to being more loyal to a company that had dealt swiftly with their previous enquiries.

A recent Connect survey found that the two major concerns about outsourcing services like IT support were 'loss of control' (56 per cent) and 'budget over-runs (43 per cent)