A good business must run like a well-oiled machine. All the many moving parts must fit together so that your employees can deliver, in the best way possible, the product and/or services your customers expect.
As a result, any small hiccup can have a dramatic impact on the rest of your organization, which is why you need to be constantly monitoring all of your systems and processes to ensure maximum efficacy.
One vital aspect to the functioning of any business is a fast internet connection, but it’s not something most managers look at when analyzing internal operations and looking for opportunities to optimize.
However, when you consider the impacts a slow internet connection can have, the need to make sure your company has the proper capabilities will become much more apparent.
If you find an internet connection is slowing you down, it may be time to upgrade. Search for the best internet providers in your specific area, compare plans, and negotiate. For example, if you live in Florida make sure to look for the best internet providers in Florida.There’s too much at stake for you to not get the best possible service.
How Bad Internet Impacts Business
Here are some of the key ways a bad internet connection can affect business:
Productivity Slows
The connectivity of today’s workforce has allowed for unprecedented productivity. It gives employees more resources to do their work, including collaboration tools that connect teams scattered around the globe.
But behind all of this wonderful connectivity is your internet connection, and if it’s not up to the task, then a lot of the benefits a connected workforce provides will disappear.
Apps people use to do their work, especially those based on the cloud, such as Google’s suite of productivity apps (Docs and Sheets, to name two), will load slowly or inaccurately, which can make it next to impossible for more than one person to work on something at a time.
Another challenge a slow internet connection can bring is that it will limit your ability to transfer data, which will make it harder to have the latest, most relevant information on hand when making decisions related to the company. It will also delay the uploading of files to the cloud that other people need to access to do their jobs, grinding workflows to a halt.
All of this will slow down productivity, but a slow internet connection that hinders people trying to do their jobs will also impact employee morale. Nothing is more frustrating than a loading screen, and these small delays can add up over time and frustrate someone to the point they struggle to do their job.
So, if you find your internet connection is not meeting your needs, then you should consider upgrading soon before it has a profound impact on the health of your business.
Customer Experience Suffers
If you have a slow internet connection, your employees will suffer. But things don’t stop there. A poor internet connection on your end can slow things down for the customer, which will negatively impact the experience they have with you.
For one, if account information takes too long to load, something that could happen if your CRM software is relying on a slow internet connection to find the relevant information and display it, then people may begin to trust your site less, or they may simply get impatient and decide to go somewhere else.
This can also happen with payment processing. If things are too slow on your end, customers need to wait longer than needed to check out and finish their purchase. And when this takes too long, you increase the chances people will back out of the transaction and you lose money.
It can be incredibly frustrating, especially if you’ve done the right thing and invested in building a custom website specifically to improve the experience people have on it. All of that could wind up being for nothing if you don’t have the ability to support a fast, streamlined operation on the back end.
Customer Service
A slow internet connection can also impact your ability to provide quality customer service. More and more people are beginning to expect digital service options, such as screen sharing, remote access, and video chatting for “house calls,” all of which require your agents to have a solid, stable internet connection.
Of course, many people still rely on the telephone for service, but a poor slow connection speeds prevent you from adopting more current tactics that can set you apart from the competition and really help your business.
Revenue Goes Down
The bottom line is that while a slow internet connection impacts your business in lots of ways, they all will eventually lead to a loss in revenue. Either productivity will slow down, increasing labor costs, or customers will begin to turn away, decreasing earnings.
As a result, it’s imperative you have a network that can meet your needs. Don't settle for slow internet and decreased bandwidth for your business!
