Small business secrets...

Is slow and unreliable broadband affecting your small business?

Posted by Suzannah Hale on Oct 10, 2017 12:25:42 PM

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An Ofcom study has shown that 83% of small businesses consider communications services to be fundamental to their business, and 78% use a fixed broadband connection.

As businesses are becoming more reliant on the internet and internet services it is important to have fast broadband to increase productivity and keep up company morale

We’ve composed 4 reasons why fast internet will improve your business, and therefore why you can’t afford to stick with your current slow speeds.

Increase productivity

Slow broadband can waste a lot of your employees time. While waiting 3 minutes for that file to download doesn’t seem like much time at all, if each employee is experiencing this one a day. This will total around 800 minutes lost a year!

By getting faster broadband it not only speeds up downloading files but also searching on the internet, sending emails and opening emails.

Research has shown, that is a website doesn’t load in four seconds or less, 25% of people will navigate away from that page. If your internet speeds are slow, it is likely that your employees won’t be accessing great pages, simply because they aren’t loading quickly enough. Great content and important websites could be missed by your employees this way and could have a negative impact.

A growing business

Super-fast broadband allows you to get a better experience when running more than one application at the same time. It is a fact that as your business grows, the number of people using your business broadband also grows. With more employees all using the internet, it can put a strain on your connection and as a result, your speed could be slowed.

A faster connection or even fibre internet (which is now available in more areas in the UK, read more) could improve your broadband experience. A faster speed is designed to be used by more people/devices.

Cloud-based phones

More and more services are moving online due to the advancement in cloud-based technologies. From cloud-based phone systems to documents and CRM systems (Customer Relationship Management), it is proven that over 80 per cent of companies now use the cloud in some way.

With this increase, it can put strains on slow broadband and cause loss of time and lack of productivity among staff. Fast broadband will ensure users can access the cloud quickly, and hassle-free. There will be no delay in accessing crucial information, and customer service/sales representatives won’t face any delays when communicating with prospective customers.

Backing up documents / faster download speeds

Two out of three businesses claim they will use more digital technology by 2020. This could be a larger online presence, greater use of social media, online ordering or online customer service capabilities.

Saving and backing up those all important business documents is so important, but you also need to have fast access to them. By using the cloud businesses are able to store their documents more securely and access them more freely. Faster broadband speeds mean you can upload and access these files quickly and easily.

 

Final thoughts

Fast broadband can make a substantial difference to the way your business operates. If you value time, productivity and hassle-free process in your business, and slow broadband is slowing your business down, consider switching supplier. This doesn’t have to be a hassle - read our related article on how to switch business broadband suppliers.

If you would like to discuss bOnline’s business broadband packages or want to find out more about our different services, please contact our sales team. Email sales@bonline.com or call us on 020 3617 9950.

 

Share and enjoy

If you have any questions or comments about this post please fill in the comment box below, or send me an email shale@bonline.com

 

Topics: Broadband, Latest

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