What would happen if your broadband went out at your place of business? Would business stop? What if that outage continued for days? What financial and reputational cost could that have on your business? Our guess is, pretty big!
There are not many companies in operation these days that don’t rely heavily, if not entirely, on a good Internet connection. This is even truer in a post-COVID world in which the entire economic landscape changed and an online business culture evolved at an accelerated pace.
Network outages are costly and when your Internet connection is down, you will be cut off from suppliers, customers, cloud systems, remote colleagues, distributors and perhaps scariest of all, revenue.
So with that in mind, the question of “what impact would an internet outage have on your business”, holds even more weight than it did before.
What is Internet Failover (Failover Broadband)?
Essentially, Internet Failover refers to a backup internet or secondary source of internet connection that can be triggered and used in the event of an outage of the primary source.
So, if the main internet connection fails – be that due to a natural disaster, power outages, cyber attacks or network maintenance – then an independent secondary failover link will take over as the main internet connection and ensure that business continuity is not affected and operations can continue as usual. It is also commonly referred to as the Internet Switchover due to the switch from primary to secondary links that happens when an outage occurs.
Risks to a business of broadband outage
The most obvious risk of broadband outage is loss in revenue. If your customers can’t contact you or sales cannot be completed online, you are cutting off your income stream. Depending on the length of the outage, which in some cases can last days or longer, this could be detrimental for any company.
Another risk posed is the danger that employees may take it upon themselves to connect their devices to unsecure networks. While this action may come from a good place, it could have serious consequences and open the company systems up to cyberattacks and data breaches.
While some employees may be determined to find a way to fix the issue, others may see no choice but to down tools completely. If outages become a frequent occurrence, this could lead to frustrations and low motivation, and ultimately a higher staff turnover as employees lose confidence in the company.
The Importance of Failover Broadband
So the risks are great and the benefits of implementing Failover Broadband are plenty. With the biggest one being that it avoids the risk of revenue loss, other benefits include:
Maintains business continuity
Having a backup broadband as a secondary connection means that an outage, caused for whatever reason, will not impact on the business getting things done. There will be minimal, if any, disruption with business operations able to continue regardless.
No loss in productivity
As mentioned already, when a connection fails, it means that employees may be unable to carry out their work. This loss in productivity can have a knock on effect lasting beyond the outage period. Failover broadband prevents this downtime so business inputs and outputs can remain on track.
Promotes a better customer experience
In the age of ‘instant’ everything, it will not bode well with customers to have to wait for a response to a query. If a customer’s expectations are not met or they have a poor experience as a direct result of an outage or lack of connection, they will quickly move on to a company that can fulfil their needs and your reputation could be permanently damaged.
In a survey by CA Technologies of 200 businesses across America and Europe, half said that outages directly affected their reputation. Ensuring the ability to connect and communicate with your business as expected, is key to good customer experience and retention.
How does failover broadband work?
Though you may feel you have the strongest broadband there is, no broadband service is completely safe from the risk of an outage. Therefore, it is extremely important to have a backup broadband in place.
The process of setting up a backup internet through the implementation of failover broadband may seem daunting, but it is quite straightforward. We have outlined the process here:
Step 1 – Analysis
This is where requirements are assessed and the correct internet connection options are identified for your particular business.
Step 2 – Installation
The installation process usually takes between 5 and 7 days and the new connection is documented for future use and fast troubleshooting.
Step 3 – Management
Though not all providers offer this, at One Contact, we remotely manage the broadband connection and perform upgrades for performance and security wherever required.
Step 4 – Monitoring
Again, not all providers will offer a monitored service, but our team is equipped and ready to monitor the performance of the connection and act upon any alerts to ensure no preventable outages occur.
Step 5 – Fault Resolution
Acting quickly in the event of a connection failure is vital. Though the backup connection will keep business moving, it is important to restore the primary connection as soon as possible. At One Contact, we use remote diagnostic tools and historic performance data to identify and resolve the issue quickly and efficiently.
Step 6 – Keeping you Informed
Knowing that everything is under control is very important. This is something that we here at One Contact ensure. Keeping you informed throughout the whole process so that you can focus on keeping things in business as usual mode.
Installing failover broadband starts by getting in touch. Contact us online, by email to info@OneContact.ie or speak to one of the team now on 01 906 0990.
You can also download an infographic on the benefits of Failover Broadband here.
