Brick-and-mortar retailers are focused on getting customers back in their stores, now more than ever. Last year forced many retailers to adapt and pivot their business in order to stay afloat. However, retailers can be comforted by the fact that consumers still prefer to buy in person (BusinessTech by Hashmicro) after doing their research online.

So, how do you get customers to stay in your business longer and return often? One of the easiest and most cost effective ways to understand customer behavior, provide a better experience, and promote customer loyalty is to offer free guest WiFi. We found that when businesses offer free WiFi, guests spend more time there, buy more, and return more often. The convenience of guest WiFi provides shoppers a way to connect with your brand and gives you an opportunity to directly influence their behavior.

Should you invest in guest WiFi for your retail space?

Here are the top six ways guest WiFi can help you improve your retail business:

1. Understand patterns of behavior. Guest WiFi allows you to measure how customers navigate your store so you can understand their journey. For example, you can find out how much time a customer spends and where. You can use this information to better understand how visitors interact in your venue and adjust store layout accordingly. Once you understand behavior patterns, you can begin to influence behavior and implement the right strategies to keep customers coming back.

2. Collect valuable data to build a large customer audience. Your guest WiFi can provide an effective, intelligent, and unobtrusive way to regularly collect data. Our customers report the main source of their customer acquisition is through a captive portal. Captive portal is the landing page your guests use to sign in and receive access to your guest WiFi. Your landing page will allow you to gather customer data like name, email, phone, or social media profiles. This will help you develop rich customer profiles based on who your visitors are and if they are a repeat visitor. You can progressively profile visitors by capturing new data on each return visit. These customer profiles will become your list of interested individuals to market to in the future through targeted ads and promotions.

3. Collect customer feedback. You can deliver automated surveys before providing access to your network or as exit surveys after the customer leaves. This will allow you to collect timely feedback about customer experience.

4. Gain a greater understanding of your customers. You can gain valuable insights by analyzing the data you collect through guest WiFi and other channel integrations like your social media, website, or CRM platform. The Skyfii platform unifies digital sources to a customer which allows you to connect the digital view to the physical view. For example, when a customer signs up for guest WiFi, you’ll be able to capture customer information. You can cross-reference this information with their physical data in your space like dwell times, return visits, and more. This will help you gain a multidimensional view of your customer and understand them on another level.

5. Measure impact of marketing campaigns. Through the use of captive portal, you can attribute campaigns to visits and purchases. You will understand how marketing campaigns, promotions, and product launches impact visitation, conversion, and behavior. You can also measure the impact of spend across multiple concurrent marketing channels on driving in-store visits, conversions, and loyalty.

6. Drive in-store conversions. From targeted ads to follow-up messages, retailers can deliver campaigns that convert by sending the right message at the right time. Drive conversion with personalized offers, automatically delivered to customers when they enter your store, engage with a department, or after they leave. Personalization makes your brand memorable and more likely to bring repeat business.

Are you ready for your SkyFii guest WiFi solution?

With the right captive portal solution, you can harness your existing WiFi network to deliver an affordable, scalable, reliable, and easy-to-use platform for managing guest WiFi. Our captive portal solution is proven in major airports, shopping centers, retailers, and other physical venues around the world.

Skyfii’s industry leading captive portal guest WiFi solution integrates seamlessly with our suite of venue intelligence and multichannel communications tools. This provides you with the ability to make the changes to your captive portal landing page or marketing messages from anywhere so you have more time to focus on other areas of your business.

Discover how our Captive Portal Guest WiFi solution can help you deliver a personalized customer experience. Request your free demo.