Speed and reliability are two of the most critical things to look out for when choosing an Internet Service Provider (ISP). We often forget how much our businesses rely on the internet, ranging from everything from internal communications and data transfers to telesales and marketing. If your internet connection is slow and unreliable, it can seriously damage your business’ productivity and impact on the quality of customer service you can provide. Here are five facts that show just how important it is to make the right decision when it comes to Internet Service Providers.
Slow internet speeds will frustrate your customers
In today’s highly connected world, customers expect to receive relevant information virtually instantly. If your internet connection is unreliable, slow or does not provide adequate amounts of bandwidth, then your site could load very slowly or even crash. This could make it harder for your clients to find the services or products they’re looking for, and it could make them back out of your site and head over to a competitor who provides a more reliable service.
Poor connections can affect even the biggest businesses
You might think that global businesses would have a great Internet Service Provider in place. However, if this fascinating blog by Profit and Laws is anything to go by, you’d be wrong. They have stated that Amazon said that a page that loads one-second slower costs them over $1.6bn in annual sales. Google, on the other hand, has stated that pages that load just four-tenths of a second slower lose around 8m searches a day. This is a phenomenal amount, and it could impact on the number of advertisers that fight it out for a space on Google’s search pages.
The morale of your employees could drop
Most employees in a business are juggling multiple projects at the same time and have tight deadlines to work to – and the internet plays a big part in allowing these deadlines to be met. In John White’s LinkedIn post, he says that the number one cause of employee frustration is slow internet. The more time your employees spend waiting for the internet to catch up is less time they could be working on their deadlines. This means that they’ll become more stressed due to an increased workload, and you could find that they become very unhappy.
Lost productivity
White’s blog unearthed a startling fact from a survey carried out by Sandisk: The average worker wastes one week per year waiting for their company’s network to respond. There’s no doubt that a slow and unreliable internet connection can bring your business to a grinding halt. Work may become backed up, and orders may go unprocessed. If you have a large workforce, just think how many weeks per year you are losing in terms of productivity. This could have a serious impact on your brand and result in thousands of pounds being lost.
You might struggle to future-proof your business
The internet is expanding all the time, and the amount of new data that gets added to it every day is astonishing. If your current provider cannot give you the service you need now, then how do you expect them to do so in a year? The internet could have grown exponentially by then. In fact, you’ll be even further behind your competitors in the future if you do not look at getting a better deal or a more reliable Internet Service Provider. However, this is where a company like Leased Line Comparison can help. They compare every major ISP in the UK to find you the best and most affordable leased lines for your business. You could save your organisation thousands of pounds every year by doing so.
