Small and medium-sized business owners are receiving a worse service from mobile operators than their landline counterparts, despite increasing reliance on mobile to run their organisations. An in-depth survey by RootMetrics, the standard for independent mobile performance information, covered over 1,000 businesses and found nearly half of business owners (46%) are losing multiple important business calls on a daily basis due to the poor mobile performance they are receiving.

Ranking performance on a scale of one to five, with one being the worst and five the best, small business owners revealed the level of service on their mobile (1.51) is worse than their landline (2.22). This comes despite businesses investing more in mobile devices than traditional office equipment, with nearly every business owner surveyed (99%) using their mobile at least once a day to make a call.

Nearly a fifth of small businesses (19%) now provide all their staff with a mobile device, resulting in them spending more on mobile contracts each month than hardware to support the business. In London, a third of small businesses (32%) are now providing all their employees with a mobile, despite recent insights from RootMetrics finding Londoners experience only the fifth best mobile performance in the country (according to weighted performance average based on its H1 2014 National RootScore Reports). London drops significantly on call performance in particular, ranked as 14th in the UK (out of 16 metros tested), registering a weighted performance average of just 88.8 points. Meanwhile nationwide, virtually every small business owner (99%) has experienced dropping at call whilst conducting an important conversation on their mobile.

Bill Moore, CEO and President of RootMetrics, comments: “Small businesses increasingly rely on their mobile devices to conduct business, with many of these businesses now spending more on mobile contracts than on traditional essentials like heating, air conditioning, and office computers. Yet clearly many are unhappy with the performance they are experiencing, and it is particularly telling that in London call performance is amongst the worst in the country.”