How Server Downtime Impacts Your Business

Whether your business relies on a third-party web host, stores data in the cloud or utilizes software-as-a-service, server downtime can have a big impact on daily activities.

 

Both remote and on-premise servers can go down without warning, bringing business to a standstill and impacting customer relations.

Sales

The failure of a remote server may lead to your business website becoming inaccessible, while internal server downtime can mean you lose the ability to process incoming orders. Either problem can render your sales department useless until the servers are up and running again.

If you handle products anywhere on site, such as in a warehouse, a failed server may make it impossible to inventory new shipments and keep track of anything that was supposed to ship out. For every hour you’re unable to take in new orders or process existing ones, your business can potentially lose thousands of dollars.

Employee Productivity

If your business hosts essential applications on any server, whether internal or remote, you run the risk of losing access to everything when that server goes down. Internal communications grind to a halt when employees can’t access their e-mail. Orders pile up when the sales department can’t run the programs necessary to complete them.

Downtime can be even more disastrous in businesses that handle medical information, finances or travel amenities such as bus and airplane schedules. Without the ability to access and run the applications necessary to manage important daily services, employees sit idle and regular productivity becomes impossible.

Customer Satisfaction

Loss of any type of service due to server downtime impacts customer satisfaction. When customers can’t get to your website, they can’t make any purchases. On-premise server problems may render your tech support or customer service departments unavailable, leading to further dissatisfaction when people are unable to get the help they were hoping for.

Continued server problems make your business seem unreliable and can have a lasting effect on your business reputation as a whole. The longer you’re unable to serve your customers, the more likely they are to turn to the competition.

Data Loss

Relying on servers to store important data means running the risk of losing that data. When any type of hardware encounters problems or fails completely, it can suffer damage. Damaged hardware makes for costly data retrieval, which has a negative impact on your business budget.

Also, if your daily activities require saving information through server-hosted applications or on a server-based network, you’ll be unable to do so during any kind of downtime. Though a server outage doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll be missing information when the problem is fixed, it’s enough of a concern that you should have a solid backup plan for all areas of your business.

The technology necessary for running a business in today’s market is, unfortunately, far from infallible. Having a plan for dealing with server downtime can help you avoid costly losses in sales and data, meaning that it’s essential to be prepared before disaster strikes.

Make sure that you’re familiar with all of the important programs and data that are run from both remote and on-premise servers so that you can be ready if your technological infrastructure suddenly fails.