6 ways unreliable internet is costing your business

Regardless of your industry, your small business probably relies on internet connection for day-to-day matters and operations. An unreliable internet connection can cost you much more than just lost time. Delays, disruptions, and lost contacts and customers are some of the impacts, and these can lead to thousands of dollars or more in lost revenue.

To understand how important a quality internet connection is to your small business, start by looking at all the ways an unreliable internet can end up costing your business.

1. Slow speeds

An unreliable internet connection might result in slow internet speeds that can be highly disruptive and problematic for your business. Accessing the cloud, answering customer queries on your VoIP phone line, and collaborating with colleagues in the office or on another site can all become frustrating experiences. With slow speeds, you can get patchy connections and any work requiring the internet can take much longer to complete, leading to significant productivity declines.

2. Compromised collaboration

If you have remote workers or if your team does cloud-based work, an unreliable internet connection can be highly disruptive.

From real-time collaboration to backups and saving your work, your cloud-based apps can’t perform as efficiently without a stable internet connection.

3. Lost business

Whether it’s because customers can’t contact you or you can’t respond to their queries, unreliable internet connections can mean a significant amount of lost business. Due to interrupted voice signals, connection drop-outs or even disconnections, you won’t be able to receive web-based queries, email queries, and VoIP calls and so you won’t be able to respond to them.

Customers who can’t reach you in a timely manner might turn to your competitors instead. This means you will lose sales opportunities and potential business. Your business could also have a decline in reliability as customers become increasingly dissatisfied with their experience of your company, tarnishing your business reputation.

4. Lost production

The increasing reliance of workplaces on the internet means an unreliable internet connection can be disruptive to productivity. From your intranet to cloud services and phone calls, your employees often rely on a working internet connection to collaborate, communicate, research, and perform their day-to-day duties.

In the absence of this, not only are your customer-facing staff unable to communicate with customers and leads, but other organisational functions will be interrupted. Your marketing, human resources, operations, and core business processes can experience major disruptions, so the lost production applies to your entire business.

Other types of communications can also be interrupted. For example, your suppliers could find it hard to reach you. This can lead to message backlogs, productivity drops, and lost business.

5. Wasted labour time

Lost sales and production aren’t the only ways an unreliable internet connection is costing your business. When your internet goes down, you still have to pay your staff. These labour costs mean lost production is a double cost for your organisation. This is particularly problematic for your business if your employees depend on your IT infrastructure for a large majority of their work.

6. Lost money

Delays, slow speeds, interrupted communications, and lost labour all amount to lost money. You’re losing productivity, output, and sales as well as wasted overheads and labour costs. These are costs you can’t just turn off because your internet connection is disrupted.

This ‘double whammy’ of costs can mean thousands of dollars or more in losses for your business. One Australian study shows average costs of at least $9,000 thanks to lost business, unreliable service, and connection costs.

Internet shouldn’t cost you this much

From lost productivity and wasted labour costs to lost sales opportunities, unreliable internet connections can cost your business in a range of ways, all of which lead to reduced profitability.

Given the critical nature of a working internet connection to businesses, every business should choose their internet provider carefully. Take your time to find a reliable internet service provider who can provide your business with the voice and data connections that it needs to succeed.

Are you putting up with an unreliable internet connection for your business? Aussie Broadband is the carrier that cares about the needs of Australians. We offer fast internet connections and Australia-based teams, so you know you’re getting quality service and support. Our team of talented and friendly staff would love to help you choose a service that’s right for your business needs, so contact us today for a free quote and call-back.