Whether your business operates in the retail sector, the hospitality market, or runs a transport system, your customers are going to have something in common – a desire for guest WiFi. 
They could be looking for the opening times of your shop, or instagramming a dish from your specials menu, but doing these things requires a speedy internet connection.

So why should you be offering business WiFi for your customers and how do you benefit?
In this guide, we explain how you can grow your customer base using just the internet.

Why should I offer guest WiFi?

There are several advantages to offering your customers public internet access and you can benefit from them too. If you offer a simple and easy way to access WiFi, clients are more likely to use the service, which gives you the opportunity to grow your customer base. This also allows you to promote other products to existing clients.

Here are just four way that offering business WiFi can increase your customer base:

1. Consumer insight

WiFi for businesses which extends to customers allows companies to gather data on how people use their services. Operating similar to web analytics, this service monitors things such as real-time footfall, dwell times, returning visitors and how customers interact with facilities.
This gives you the chance to create a buyer persona. Why is this important? It allows you to tailor your business messages and marketing materials to better suit your customers. In order to create offers 
and promotions which will genuinely interest your clients, you need to know more about them. Offering guest WiFi allows you to implement WiFi analytics and collate all the data you could need.

2. Increase customer loyalty

Alongside growing your customer base, it’s also crucial to improve your current clientele. If you focus all your efforts on finding new customers, you risk losing people already loyal to your brand and services.

By offering a good guest WiFi service, customers are more likely to return to use it again. For example, if your business is a café offering quick food to professional people on their lunch break, you know your customers are looking to respond to emails or check their social media while they eat. If your business WiFi is quick and easy to connect to, customers will come back.

3. Word of mouth

Offering a great WiFi service doesn’t just improve existing customer loyalty, it can also help you bring in new clients through word of mouth. In a technological society, there are so many ways for people to recommend businesses to other people.

Giving your customers a great service increases the chances that they’ll recommend you to a friend. For example, if your hotel uses business WiFi and you offer the service to your clients, there’s a good chance customers using it will write a review on a site such as TripAdvisor, which are becoming increasingly more popular, and endorse your services to other potential clientele.

4. Collect customer data

As well as collecting data to create a buyer persona, the information taken through WiFi analytics can also be used to improve your marketing outreach. When your customers log into your business WiFi, they enter things such as their name, email, location base and birthday. It's assumed that you would ensure privacy and other privileges for the customers but for your personal business growth this can be a definite driver with more and more consumers being able to trust your services and signing up to use it each time they are accessing your WiFi locations.

This is a great opportunity for you to tailor your marketing messages specifically for your customers. For example, if one of your stores is running a promotion, you could send a customer living locally, an email to inform them. You can also send personalised birthday messages to customers, offering them a coupon to celebrate their special day.

Although there may be a perception that guest WiFi just benefits the customer, these advantages demonstrate the rewards that companies can receive when sharing their business WiFi. Now it’s up to you to introduce this service to your business! If you have been a user of Business Wifi & have had great experience doing the same, then let us know your experiences and how you have benefitted from such services here in comments, or shoot us a post on iU eMagazine Facebook Page or tweet to us @iUeMagazine.