We all know downtime costs money and it’s important to get a network, computer or server back up and running as fast as possible.
It’s the hidden costs of downtime that are often the worst. We’ve heard stories of businesses that not only suffered losses from sales, but also from what happened after the fact.
We want to remind every business that downtime isn’t something that’s easy to afford. It can and has ruined many businesses.
Plummeting Stock Prices
I believe the most noticeable impact of downtime, at least initially, is plummeting stock prices. North American businesses already suffer around $700 billion due to outages annually, but no one really talks about stock prices. For instance, British Airways had to deal with a massive IT outage that left tens of thousands scrambling to find flights. IAG, the parent company, saw stocks drop by 4% the very next day.
Depending on the ensuing chaos as a business tries to recover, it’s not uncommon to see stock prices continue to fluctuate for weeks or even months. I would like to say it always gradually recovers, but sometimes, that’s not the case.
Impact On Partner Businesses
Every business does business with other business, even us. After all, if I was to tell a customer that we couldn’t help them because our own equipment wasn’t working, they’d be left dealing with downtime even longer. I want you to think about the British Airways incident. How many hotels, taxi companies and even restaurants lost business due to potential customers being stuck in an airport?
All of this due to an IT outage that might not have caused any problems if it had been fixed quickly enough or even if someone had noticed signs that something might be about to happen. While I know sometimes it’s impossible to predict an outage, with the right maintenance, some outages are preventable.
Dealing With A Damaged Reputation
To me, one of the biggest hidden costs of downtime is the damaged reputation. If our team wasn’t able to help our customers, I’d be a fool to believe those customers wouldn’t find another IT provider to help them. After all, their business is on the line and if we can’t help them, they’re not going to wait around for us.
A damaged reputation leads to a loss of business. For every customer or client a business has to turn away during an outage, the business could lose that client plus any referrals from them. It’s a road to ruin.
Don’t get caught without support during an IT outage. Find out how our Essential Support services can help.