The latest study by Juxt Consult, a leading interactive research and advisory agency, graded a majority of India's top companies as being non-responsive to customers on the Internet.

The scope of the study incorporated 50 of the largest Indian B2C companies in terms of revenue across retail, financial services, telecom and manufacturing sectors.

Analysts made e-mail enquiries acting as customers to the companies' Web sites and measured their responsiveness in terms of time and quality.

The key findings of the research include:

• 58% of the companies did not respond in any manner at all.
• 14% of e-mail address/forms either bounced or displayed errors on submitting a query.

• 32% of the companies in the overall sample responded satisfactorily.
• Amongst different verticals, telecom industry was the most sensitive to customer queries.
• Debunking popular myth, public sector units were better than the private companies when it came to customer responsiveness.

The report highlights the increasing need for companies to develop effective eCRM (customer relationship management) channels to address the growing Internet user base in India.

This study, spread over a period of three weeks, found that most of these companies had no proper mechanism to handle queries from either existing or potential customers.

While significant money was being spent on creating an Internet presence, the results of the study did not indicate a similar interest in the maintenance of the basic Web properties.

Juxt Consult is a subsidiary of Webchutney that advises consumer-facing companies with online advertising, marketing, and customer service strategies to understand, attract, convert and retain customers.