It’s easy to dismiss downtime as a rare inconvenience — something that “might” happen once in a while. But the truth is, even a single hour without your systems can cost far more than you think.

And we’re not just talking about lost wages. Downtime impacts sales, customer confidence, and the trust you’ve worked hard to build.

Let’s break it down.

When your team grinds to a halt

Imagine five members of your team sitting at their desks, unable to do their jobs because the systems are down. They can’t send emails, process sales, or even access the files they need.

If each of those employees costs you around £20 an hour in wages, that’s £100 lost immediately. And that’s before you consider rent, utilities, software licences, and other overheads still ticking away while nothing gets done.

Missed work, missed opportunities

Downtime doesn’t just pause today’s tasks — it blocks tomorrow’s opportunities.

Maybe a client wanted to place an order. Maybe a prospective customer needed urgent support. Instead, they hear:

“Sorry, our systems are down right now.”

Once might be forgiven. Twice, and confidence starts to slip. Customers who can’t rely on you will go elsewhere — often for good.

Orders that never land

If you sell online or process orders through a system, downtime stops revenue dead.

Whether it’s a £10 sale or a £10,000 deal, if a customer can’t buy in the moment, there’s a good chance they won’t wait around. Multiply that across an hour of lost trade, and the figure can easily eclipse the cost of staff wages.

Playing catch-up comes at a price

Here’s the hidden cost: even if the outage only lasts an hour, your team is now behind.

That often means working late, paying overtime, or pushing tomorrow’s work into the following day. Before long, that £100 in lost wages looks more like £300 once the knock-on effect takes hold.

Some hours are gone forever

In certain industries — from logistics to education — you simply can’t claw back lost time. A missed delivery slot, a cancelled lesson, or a rescheduled appointment creates a ripple effect that can stretch over days.

Rebooking, rescheduling, apologising, explaining — all of it eats into momentum and customer goodwill.

The bigger the business, the bigger the hit

Five employees offline is painful enough. Twenty, fifty, or a whole site down? Even for a small business, downtime can burn through thousands in an hour.

For mid-sized organisations, one hour of downtime can easily creep into five-figure losses.

So what can you do?

Technology will never be flawless. But with the right proactive support, downtime doesn’t have to be a regular threat to your business.

That’s where we come in.

At Hilt Digital Solutions, we help businesses across Wirral, Liverpool, Chester and the wider North West:

  • Monitor systems around the clock to spot issues before they become outages.
  • Keep teams productive with secure cloud solutions and fast support.
  • Put continuity plans in place so even when things go wrong, your business keeps moving.

Because downtime isn’t just a technical problem — it’s a business risk. And protecting against it could save you thousands.

Ready to protect your business from costly downtime?

Let’s talk about how we can keep your systems secure, reliable, and always available.

👉 Read more about how proactive maintenance can reduce your costs

👉 Book a call to see how much money you could save