How Signal Dead Zones Affect Your Business?

Signal dead zones can be extremely harmful to businesses. These areas mean that neither customers nor employees can place calls, send text messages or connect to mobile data. So, why does this matter to your business?

In this digital age, customers expect mobile connectivity wherever they go and a lack of a cellular connection is not just frustrating, it can drive customers away. However, it’s not just customers who are affected by dead zones, poor connectivity also means staff struggle to communicate, having a knock-on effect on business productivity and profitability.

Keep reading to learn more about why dead zones are harmful to your business, what causes these dead zones and how you can fix them.

Why Are Signal Dead Zones Harmful to Your Business?

Poor mobile connectivity can be incredibly disruptive to your business and hurt both workplace processes and customer experience.

Poor Customer Service

Many customers rely on a strong mobile signal while using businesses. Consider the following scenarios:

• A customer in a supermarket needs mobile data to check a recipe or compare prices while shopping in-store. In North America, 72% of adults use their smartphone to research price comparisons while shopping in-store.
• A guest at a hotel needs cellular connectivity to complete contactless check-in.
• A patient in a hospital needs a strong phone signal so they can talk to friends and family.
• A customer at a retail store needs to move some money to complete their purchase and requires a phone signal for 2-factor authentication.
• A gymgoer needs internet access to listen to music, post pictures of their fitness progress and message their friends.

If customers find themselves in a cellular dead zone, customers will be unable to get online, or take and receive calls/texts. This can quickly lead to frustration, shortening their interaction with your business and potentially leading your customers to go to competitors instead.

Negative Brand Reputation

Customers have come to expect mobile connectivity wherever they are. Poor mobile connectivity can lead to negative reviews which harm your business’s reputation and deter other potential customers from using your services or purchasing your products.

Inefficient Communication

It’s not just customers who suffer as a result of signal dead zones, poor connectivity can also be detrimental to workplace communication. Dropped calls or missed texts might lead to miscommunication, errors or missed deadlines. If your employees are unable to communicate with each other across your workplace, this can quickly cause issues and reduce workplace efficiency.

Interrupted Operations

Signal dead zones in your workplace can quickly bring workplace operations to a halt. Consider the following use case in a warehouse or manufacturing facility.

Example: Warehouse Operations

In a warehouse, maintaining a smooth flow of operations is essential. Cellular dead zones can easily lead to this flow being disrupted. For example, if the warehouse operations manager is unable to communicate with those on the floor, this delayed communication can easily lead to mistakes being made. Ultimately, this results in reduced productivity and profitability for your business.

Decreased Efficiency and Productivity

In a UK survey, 73% of office workers reported that poor connectivity was to blame for poor work efficiency. With landlines becoming obsolete and most employees conducting business on mobile devices, signal dead zones can have a huge impact on workplace productivity. If employees have to leave the office to place a call, less time is spent on work operations. Additionally, dead zones often mean frequent dropped or missed calls which can harm your business’s relationships with clients, customers or key stakeholders.

Reduced Safety

Signal dead zones can also significantly reduce safety for both employees and customers. If areas of your workplace have no signal, this means that emergency calls can’t be placed in the event of an incident which can extend the time it takes emergency services to respond. Additionally, in industries such as healthcare where a lack of communication caused by dead zones can be incredibly harmful to patient care and prevent staff from accessing critical information.

What Causes Signal Dead Zones?

Signal dead zones can be highly frustrating for your business and disrupt your day-to-day workplace process. It’s important to understand what can lead to these areas of no connectivity so that you can limit the harmful effect they can have on your business.

Building Materials

Many of the most common building materials, especially those used in industrial and commercial buildings, can block mobile phone signals. This includes:

• Concrete
• Brick and stone
• Metal, such as steel and iron
• Ceramic
• Tiles
• Fibre-glass insulation
• Low-E glass
• Wire mesh
• Wood
• Mirrors

Obstructions

Physical barriers can obstruct mobile phone signals. This includes natural obstructions, such as trees and hills, and manmade obstacles, such as cranes and scaffolding.

Distance From Mobile Phone Towers

How far away your business is from a mobile phone tower can have a significant effect on mobile signal strength. Phone signals get weaker if they have to travel a greater distance resulting in an unstable mobile phone signal, poor connectivity and dead zones.

Cellular Network Capacity and Demand

In densely populated areas, such as busy city centres, mobile phone towers may become overloaded. This is referred to as network congestion and can result in reduced signal strength and dead zones in some areas.

Network Coverage

According to Ofcom, the UK generally has good outdoor network coverage with 93% of the UK’s landmass having 4G coverage from at least one operator (in 2023). However, this does not mean that network coverage is always as comprehensive indoors.

Ofcom has produced data on the UK’s ‘not-spots’ (postcodes where properties cannot get a reliable indoor phone signal from any operator) which indicates that indoor connectivity is not as complete as it should be. Farrpoint has used this data to create a map of these postcodes which gives you a clear picture of the areas of the UK most affected by signal dead zones.