The survey finds that 95% of consumers say the type of phone number a business has makes a difference to them. In addition, 91% rate a company's professionalism by its web address and 63% judge small firms by their email address format.
And changes to these "digital identities" could bring in significantly more business opportunities for SMEs, says the report.
The findings also emphasise the importance of being online, with 80% of consumers saying they'd expect smaller businesses to have a website. Almost half of consumers say they'd prefer to use a website as the first point of contact to find out more information about a small business.
.co.uk is best
When it comes to web addresses, the co.uk web suffix is seen as the most reliable, reputable and professional. Addresses ending in .com were assumed to belong to larger companies, while the worst scoring suffixes were .net, .info and .biz – deemed to be the sign of a "disreputable" company by 41% of respondents.
Email addresses are also critical in creating the right impression, according to the survey. Almost two thirds (63%) of respondents say they form an opinion about a company based on its email address format alone. The best performers were the format firstname.surname@, which was seen as the most approachable, professional and reliable. Generic info@ addresses were seen as least approachable, while firms using Hotmail and Yahoo! risk being seen as unreliable and unprofessional.
Local landline telephone numbers are marginally preferred over freephone numbers. However, just 6% of consumers prefer a mobile number and premium numbers are unpopular with all but 0.6% of consumers.
Charles Bligh, managing director of TalkTalk Business, said: "SMEs clearly need to give serious consideration to how they are managing their digital identity and the impression it may be making on customers and prospects. Those SMEs that have still not taken the digital plunge need to consider the huge business opportunity they are missing."
