61% of SMEs experience stress due to expectations regarding accessibility

For many SMEs, being available to customers clashes with being able to work undisturbed. As many as 61 percent cite customers' expectations of being helped immediately as a source of work stress. More than half (54%) experience pressure to be available at all times, while 53 percent indicate that (telephone) availability comes at the expense of employees' concentration. This is evident from research by KPN, conducted by Motivaction, among 819 SMEs involved in decisions regarding AI and data. With the launch of a mobile subscription with AI specifically for SMEs, KPN is responding to this tension between availability and productivity.  

This pressure to be available is linked to the importance of customer satisfaction: 69 percent of SMEs view increasing it as a major business challenge. It is precisely this desire to help customers quickly and effectively that makes it difficult for many smaller companies to set limits on availability, thereby contributing to it becoming a source of work stress.

Thomas Tolsma, responsible for SMEs at KPN: “For many entrepreneurs, being accessible is not a choice, but a natural part of their work. You want to help customers quickly and not miss out on orders, but in practice, that very customer contact takes a lot of time and leads to interruptions. Especially in smaller companies, where people combine multiple roles, this quickly comes at the expense of focus and overview. Entrepreneurs want to help their customers well, but in daily practice, they also run up against the limits of their own time and attention. At the same time, many SMEs are looking for ways to organize that customer contact more intelligently, without extra systems or complexity. AI applications can help with this, provided they align directly with their daily work.”

SMEs see opportunities for AI, but usage is still often ad hoc.
SMEs view AI as a way to organize accessibility and customer contact more intelligently. For instance, 60 percent believe that AI enables companies to be available 24/7 without additional staff, while 66 percent expect that AI can take over part of the customer contact and thereby reduce the workload.

However, in practice, AI is still far from being deployed structurally. More than eight out of ten SMEs (82%) do not yet use AI in a structured or strategic manner. Half of the respondents (51%) do not use AI at all, or only use it ad hoc and individually within the organization. This shows that many entrepreneurs are still looking for concrete applications that immediately solve problems in their daily practice, without extra systems or complex implementations.

KPN launches after the summer: AI on mobile for SMEs
Against this backdrop, KPN is introducing an AI extension to its mobile subscription for SMEs after the summer. In this extension, AI helps process and follow up on incoming calls and messages. The service summarizes calls, converts voicemails to text, and helps determine which customer requires attention first. With this, KPN addresses a concrete bottleneck for entrepreneurs: loss of time and concentration due to constant availability. New customers can choose a subscription with or without these AI functionalities; existing customers can add the solution without switching providers or changing numbers.

About the research
The research was conducted in June 2026 by Motivaction on behalf of KPN among 819 SME decision-makers and influencers in the field of AI and data. The respondents work at SMEs with 2 to 150 employees.