Your internet speed does affect your business badly!

Internet speed is now number one priority especially to people who are doing E-commerce business. Everyone understands the frustration in waiting for a web page to load or your inbox to refresh. This lag damages your business in one or two of the following ways:

• Your clients do not receive the information they require to make a purchasing decision quickly. They may end up buying from your competitors and you have just lost a potential sale!
• Your employees are required to deliver the best customer journey but are to slow in responding. You have potentially damaged your brand.

For most, an internet lag can drive you up the wall, but when you're experiencing connectivity problems within your business it can have more serious consequences. A few second's delay on receiving an all-important email, or time-lapse in collaborating doesn't sound like much, but it can be the difference between a task completed successfully and a lost sale.

Ensuring that you provide a fast, secure internet connection is crucial to the optimal functioning of your business. In this article, we take a look at how the speed of your internet provider affects your sales and reaching your business objectives.

An internet connection is required for the day to day running of most businesses like daily communication (emails), managing tasks (trello and freshdesk) and storing valuable information (Mailchimp). All of these applications require a stable and fast internet connection to execute tasks effectively and manage workflow.

Can you see there is a direct link between the services your business provides, the technology it uses and the workforce used to meet your business objectives.

How can you strengthen this technological link?

• Increase your response time
• Research up to date software programs that stores your info in the cloud
• Ensure your digital infrastructure is sustainable

How to choose the most suitable internet service provider for your business?

1. Identify the applications you use on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
2. Check what is the optimal speed required for these applications.
3. Research the best deal, not based on price only but value-added service for your business.
4. Don't forget to check your coverage

The speed at which you upload and download files may be one of the biggest determining factors of your internet speed requirements. This should not be the only considered factor, competition is tight and these days you can get a lot more value compared to previous years. A service provider may offer you a 24 hours contact centre support, general business support services, marketing tools and advise of free software programs that will make your life easier.

Speedtest.net, also known as Speedtest by Ookla, is a web service that provides free analysis of Internet access performance metrics, such as connection data rate and latency. It is the flagship product of Ookla, a web testing and network diagnostics company founded in 2006, and based in?Seattle, Washington, United States.

The service measures the?data throughput (speed) and latency (connection delay) of an Internet connection against one of around 8,000 geographically dispersed?servers?(as of November 2019). Each test measures the data rate for the download direction, i.e. from the server to the user computer, and the upload data rate, i.e. from the user's computer to the server. The tests are performed within the user's web browser or within apps. As of September 2018, over 21 billion speed tests have been completed.

Tests were previously performed using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) at Layer 7 of the OSI model. To further improve accuracy, Speedtest.net now performs tests via direct Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) sockets and uses a custom protocol for communication between servers and clients.

Explore all your options before making a final decision, but then and again with new stable mobile internet connections, you can change your mind again and again.