Emma Lewis, bOnline
When you run a small business, having fast and reliable broadband is as important as having running water or electricity. From emails to video calls, e-commerce to cloud storage, almost everything a modern business does relies on a strong internet connection. But what happens when your business broadband is too slow?
The short answer: just about everything is affected. A slow connection can quietly drain productivity, annoy your team, put off customers and even hurt your profits.
Productivity Slows Right Down
One of the first signs your broadband isn’t quite hitting the mark is a noticeable dip in employee productivity. When your team has to wait for webpages to load, emails to send or cloud files to sync, those few seconds soon add up. Over the course of a week, this can mean hours lost to simply waiting around for your internet.
These interruptions can also break focus, disrupt workflows and leave teams feeling annoyed or even bored. After all, nobody wants to watch a screen loading for ages when they’ve got a deadline to meet.
VoIP Calls Start to Break Up
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone systems are popular with small businesses because they’re cost-effective, flexible and scalable. But VoIP relies heavily on decent internet so if your broadband is too slow, calls can become delayed, disjointed or drop altogether.
This can cause real issues in both internal and customer-facing communications. If it’s hard to have a clear conversation, or your customers keep getting cut off mid-call, your business may come across as unprofessional or unreliable, even if it’s only your internet connection that’s the problem.
Video Streaming Buffering Issues
Whether you’re hosting webinars, carrying out video interviews, watching training videos or using YouTube to demonstrate a product, smooth streaming is vital. Unfortunately, slow broadband can quickly turn streaming into a buffering nightmare.
Poor-quality video, constant pauses and failed streams aren’t just annoying, they can also waste valuable meeting time, reduce the quality of presentations and make online training more difficult to get done. In some industries, these delays can affect everything from sales pitches to employee onboarding.
Cloud-Based Tools Don’t Sync Properly
Many businesses rely on cloud-based software like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or Dropbox, or tools like Slack, Zoom and Trello. These services are great, until your internet slows down.
Uploading large files to the cloud could take several minutes when it should only take seconds. Changes to documents might not sync in real-time, making it hard to collaborate with others too. What should be quick and easy becomes clunky and frustrating.
A slow connection also increases the risk of files failing to save properly or emails not sending when they should, which can lead to miscommunications or missed opportunities.
Your Website (and Your Reputation) Can Suffer
If your business runs a website, especially an e-commerce platform, poor broadband can slow down updates and even affect how your site performs for customers. If you use a cloud-based CMS or manage your online shop through a hosted platform, slow broadband makes simple changes feel like pulling teeth.
What’s worse, if your customer support team uses live chat or handles tickets online, a slow connection can prevent them from responding quickly. Delayed responses can lead to negative reviews and lost trust, especially when customers are already annoyed.
How Can I Get The Best Internet Speeds For My Small Business?
To make sure your business internet doesn’t run too slow, start by choosing a broadband plan that’s designed for business use. These plans usually offer faster speeds, better support and more reliable performance than residential options.
Regularly test your internet speed to catch any issues early and make sure your router and network equipment are up to date. If you’ve got a lot of people or devices using the connection, it could well be worth upgrading your bandwidth or setting up a wired connection for key workstations.
And for peace of mind, having a backup connection like 4G or 5G can keep things running smoothly if your main internet goes down.
