Delays may leave you impoverished if time is money. As a result, a poor internet connection might deprive your small business of opportunities. It’s more than just an irritation; it’s a roadblock to reaching consumers and may be costing you more than you realize. Take a look at these ways that a poor internet connection might be harming your business.

1. Diminished Productivity

They’re a step above the regular phone lines. Honestly.

According to a SanDisk survey, the typical employee loses one week per year waiting for their company’s network to respond. Consider how much productivity you’re losing if you have more than one employee. It can also lower employees’ morale who are irritated by their inability to do their duties. Even when the system is working smoothly, this might lead to decreased productivity.

Downtime can also arise if you don’t have adequate bandwidth to handle cloud-based apps, live chat tools, or video conferencing. The time it takes to utilize these programs may outweigh their benefits.

Another factor to consider is data storage, which necessitates more bandwidth. When the internet is sluggish, it takes longer to obtain that information. Delays in acquiring the information you need to service consumers or make timely business choices come at a cost.

2. Lost Revenue

As we’ve said, time is money. If your internet is running at less than the recommended speeds, customers might not be able to conduct the business transaction they planned because it takes too long to load, or the transaction doesn’t go through at all.

Texting, phone calls and messaging apps can be a good alternative, but they don’t necessarily offer the same convenience as online shopping. That’s why slow internet can erode sales.

Consider an online retailer with a small staff who can’t answer online inquiries right away. This results in customers taking their business to another retailer.

3. Tarnishes Company Reputation

When a customer cannot make a purchase, it can ruin their experience with your brand. Even if they do eventually make a purchase, chances are they’ll remember how the situation affected them. They might think of your brand as unreliable.

When consumers can’t access your website, your brand image suffers. You’re telling them you don’t care about their business. They also might think you’re a scam or a ripoff, even if you’re not.

4. Harms Your Ranking in the Search Engines

When Google and other search engines rank your website, they consider the speed at which your page loads. If it takes too long to open, it could be a signal that your site has been compromised or is engaging in shady practices.

Google also considers the time from when a user clicks on a link to when your site loads. This is called “time to first byte,” a significant ranking factor for Google. If it takes your site too long to load, you could get a low score. If it takes too long for your website to load, it might not even appear in a search.

Other search engines, including Bing and Yahoo!, use similar algorithms that measure site speed. If your website loads slowly, it might not even appear in their search results.

Conclusion

If you’re running a small business, you need to have a good Internet connection. You need to keep your website and online store running smoothly, and you need to support your sales team in meeting their sales quotas. You want to offer a consistent customer service experience and support them by providing the information they need to make informed decisions.

It’s also essential to protect your personal reputation from online snafus. You want to appear reliable, trustworthy and responsive. Slow internet can affect your bottom line as well as your brand reputation.

We at Canquest understand how vital a strong Internet connection is to a company’s success in the modern Business world. With so many ISP’s selling slow and overly expensive services while also lacking any solid technical support, Canquest is like a breath of fresh air. We provide our customers with reliable, high-speed, secure and affordable Internet and VoIP phone service and maintain local technical support agents who are available every day of the week. To learn more about our business internet plans in Chatham, give us a call today at 519-351-1565!