How Your Internet Connection Affects Your Revenue

Wasted time is wasted money, so anything less than the highest internet speeds is probably cutting into your revenue. Unfortunately, some of the fastest ISPs out there, such as Grande Communications, only serves parts of Texas at present. The big players, like Verizon or Comcast, are certainly fast but lately more obsessed with growth than speed. Any kind of delay impacts both profits and the customer experience. Here’s what you should keep in mind when searching for a better internet connection for your business.

Bandwidth

In the last few years, the amount of data usage around the globe has increased dramatically and will continue to do so. More businesses are relying on cloud services and big data. Data transfer speeds that seem robust quickly become outdated. There are also increasingly automated and sophisticated applications that companies are coming to rely on, such as ERP, CRM, video conferencing, and more. Even Microsoft Office's latest versions are focused on cloud computing.

The same is true for the apps of growing millions of mobile device users. Companies that encourage or even tolerate bring-your-own-device policies are only adding to the burden on their Wi-Fi network. This can cause erratic lags in speed that affect productivity.

Low Productivity

Your employees and colleagues come in every day with the desire to get their work done. They count on applications and networks that let them do this as efficiently as they can manage. When it's the network that's slowing down the users, you've got problems. Today, every second waiting to transfer a file or open a webpage causes irritation. 

For those in resource-intensive tasks, this frustration can build to the point where employees are disparaging of and even angry with the company infrastructure. This creates an environment where your staff lacks focus and motivation. When employees don't feel engaged with their jobs, attrition rises and productivity continues to spiral downward.

Client Frustration

The situation is even worse for off-site clients or business partners who need to interact with your servers and network. Back in 1989 when everyone had dial-up connections, the average time for loading a webpage was nearly 8 seconds. Today, even half of that is absolutely unacceptable. Customers looking for answers or trying to access their own information don't want to wait on page loads every time they click a link.

Your network is wasting their time. That degrades the quality of the services you provide. Remember that an increasing number of end-users are connecting on the go via mobile devices, not sitting comfortably at a computer. Another company that provides the same products and services you do, but with much faster channels of communication, starts to look more attractive.

Falling Profits

Like it or not, "slow" becomes part of your brand. In a world of social media, review sites, and Google searches, that one word could be a killer. Another strong trend among today's shoppers is researching major purchases on the internet. All they have to go on is what other users report, and if remarks about slow service and frustrating connections come up, they'll move on. Fortunately, there are some ways to improve speed. These include:

* Fast file compression/decompression utilities.
* Optimize images: Make sure they go on the network at the optimal size; resizing them via HTML as the page loads is a waste of time. 
* Mobile-responsive pages: These automatically detect the device that's accessing them and optimize content.
* Use caching to speed up page loads.
* Minimize the use of scripts.
* Minimize the use of static query strings.
* Creating multiple subnets and IP addresses.

You might want to consult an expert or use the services of an optimized content delivery system (CDS). Of course, these are all minimally effective if your connections are just plain slow. You might need to consider new internet providers like Frontier to get the best connection possible.

We all rely on the internet, and businesses today even more need it to function. A slow or delayed connection can get you in trouble with employees, clients, and even in your profits. Don’t wait, and make sure you have a strong connection to ensure strong results.