Installing customer-facing guest WiFi can be a hefty initial cost but what are the benefits and how you can turn your guest WiFi into a source of revenue?
Research from Deloitte has found that 81% of people in the UK now own a smartphone. This means that whether you’re a hospitality, retail or service business, it’s more than likely that, when they come into contact with your business, those with a mobile device will want to take advantage of your WiFi.
Indeed, the provision of guest WiFi is increasingly being seen as a business essential which means that most customers wanting to use their smart devices in-store or onsite, will expect a good standard of connectivity to be made available to them.
As with any marketing tool, WiFi should enhance your business. A poor standard of connectivity may convey to your customers that you are disorganised or slapdash in your approach to customer care. A complete lack of connectivity could suggest that your business is ‘behind the times’ or discourteous.
However, WiFi need no longer be just a hospitality tool to ‘keep customers happy’. As technology moves on, so too does the level of sophistication of what can be achieved. Many businesses are unaware of the wide range of functionality and benefits that some WiFi systems can now offer.
Provide a friendly welcome
Overlooked by many businesses, your guest WiFi landing page is an opportunity to interact with your customers. Providing a corporate-branded ‘welcome’ and ‘welcome back’ page for new and returning visitors conveys professionalism and strengthens your brand.
Further to this, the ability to personalise your landing page enables you to implement marketing strategies on a completely new platform, such as advertising special offers which your customers will see in real-time whilst onsite, making them more likely to take advantage of them.
Once logged in, your WiFi can be used as a portal to redirect customers to a website or app of your choice. This allows you to set your own website URL or specifically designed application as the default destination upon logging in, driving more traffic to your site and giving your customers immediate sight of your products or services.
Getting to know your customers
In addition to communicating marketing messages, it is now possible to capture valuable data about those using your business’ WiFi, giving you a better insight into your customer base.
Not only can you capture customers’ contact details for future email marketing campaigns, but it is also possible to have a usage review feature to build up a profile of how they use your business. This enables an organisation to create statistics and reports regarding who has accessed their public-facing WiFi and a breakdown of that activity.
This functionality is something which is already being implemented across shopping centres and football stadiums in the UK and allows businesses to develop tailored marketing campaigns to target different customers with sales messages likely to interest them.
Getting the right tools for the job
As the sophistication of guest WiFi systems increases, so too does the cost. There is a vast range of systems on the market catering for different budgets. Not all providers will be able to offer you all of them, so it is important to shop around and evaluate the cost benefits before investing in a new system. Get advice from a number of different providers to ascertain what is available and practical for your business premises, and that will deliver a good return on investment.
