Novahub writes:
As smartphone and tablet ownership has grown exponentially, the demand for “WiFi everywhere” has also exploded.
Human personal connectivity requirements have evolved from occasional need to constant – and as such businesses need to see good quality WiFi provision as a vital part of any customer experience.
It’s now safe to assume that most customers visiting your business premises are carrying a smartphone, tablet, laptop or smart watch, and that most will want to use it whilst on site.
For some it will be a question of email, social media or keeping on top of the latest news.
Other customers might need to stay in touch with internet-connected devices and systems back at home, such as a camera connected to the front door bell or heating system thermostats. For these early adopters of the Internet of Things, wireless connectivity isn’t simply a convenience, it’s an integral part of managing their life.
Whatever kind of public space you’re dealing with, from a guest room in a hotel to a conference space, meeting room, campus, entertainment venue, sports stadium or retail centre, the standard of WiFi you provide will need to meet customer expectations.
These expectations, as outlined above, are for much more than ‘decent’, ‘average’ or ‘acceptable’ WiFi provision.
Today’s connected customers demand seamless, reliable and fast WiFi connectivity. If they don’t get it, the impact on their customer experience – and on their perception of the venue or provider brand – will be negative.
From Online to Onsite
In terms of convenience, brand perception and customer experience, WiFi can now be regarded as integral to the overall customer experience.
Many physical customer experiences, such as retail, transportation, hospitality and business venue and event provision, commence online with a search, arrival on a website and delivery of a booking, reservation or sale.
Business spend £millions on ensuring that such online transactional experiences are seamless and fast, yet often WiFi experience in the physical delivery of the service is neglected.
Once you think about WiFi as a core element of experience, accepting that your customers’ need for personal connectivity in the physical world is key to them, you’ll quickly see requirement to start planning the ways in which you can use WiFi to improve the service and customer experience you provide onsite, as well as online.
How WiFi can deliver a Better Customer Experience
When planning your smart WiFi solution to address customer needs, the guiding principle that underpins all of your decisions must be to go beyond basic expectations.
Any sector where customers are served on site, for business, leisure, education or entertainment reasons, should consider deploying advanced, fast and ‘smart’ WiFi.
Some of the functions and processes that can be enhanced, improved or enabled by smart WiFi include:
- Personal connectivity
- Secure business connectivity
- Automated business to consumer connectivity
- Internet of Things connectivity
- Improved and personalised customer service
- Operational efficiency improvements
- Easy online payments
- Seamless communications.
In practical terms, hospitality providers such as hotels can offer personalised smart WiFi, tailored to individual profiles and preferences submitted by individual guests. Via the smart WiFi platform or app, the provider can then display or push personalised messages to promote in-house services such as spa treatments, restaurant reservations and fitness classes.
In the world of retail, the possibilities for enhanced customer service via smart WiFi are huge. These might include:
- Customised and personalised shopping experiences based on shopping preference data
- Experiential WiFi to allow customers to ‘experience’ products online before making the decision to purchase.
- Targeted location-specific promotions and recommendations to shoppers based on which part of a shop they were currently visiting.
- Sales assistants equipped with mobile devices such as tablets enabling them to engage with shoppers, check stock availability in real time, suggest alternative purchase options etc.
Using smart WiFi to deliver a premium customer experience can be offered as a USP in its own right, delivering a ‘total’ customer experience that combines the convenience of wireless online provision with real world onsite access.
Technical Considerations for Smart WiFi
Deploying smart WiFi, along with the necessary backend systems, content and mobile app-based service wrap requires considerable technical expertise.
The key is to work with an experienced team of WiFi solution experts. When selecting and evaluating a potential WiFi solution provider, consider using the following questions:
- Experience – how much experience do they have of delivering large scale, business class smart WiFi?
- Reporting – can they provide the kind of aggregated data reporting you can use to draw up analytics and help to shape future provision?
- Understanding – do they understand the ways in which you want to use smart WiFi to deliver an improved customer experience?
- Track record – can they show case studies or testimonials which document the service they’ve provided in the past?
- Provisioning – what steps do they intend to take to ensure that the infrastructure and bandwidth provision of your WiFi are both adequate?
- Complexities – do they understand the principles of reflection, refraction, interference, absorption and multipath – topics which generally fall under the umbrella of ‘radio propagation’.
- Practicalities – how will they set about installing and deploying your WiFi and, most importantly, will they have time to double check and set up systems before customers arrive?
- Support – what kind of support do they provide in case the worse happens and things go wrong – particularly out of hours support, which not all providers offer?
- Monitoring – do they provide proactive monitoring which can be used to update software, monitor status and generate reports?
Smart WiFi: No Longer a Nice to Have
The demands of modern customers for fast, seamless personal connectivity and a ‘real world’ experience that matches the online offer of your business mean that smart WiFi is becoming a necessity rather than an option.
By using Novahub’s smart WiFi services, event organisers, venue owners, museums, hotels and hospitality providers can better engage with their customers, offering a superior, personalised connectivity experience that significantly enhances overall customer experience.
Next Steps
With over 10 years’ experience offering professional WiFi solutions, Novahub can make your WiFi work better to improve your customer’s experience, enhance your venue’s attractiveness and increase your business productivity.
Contact Novahub on 01223 661310 or email us contact@novahub.co.uk to order a free site survey (depends on location) or WiFi site evaluation to discover how your existing WiFi systems can be improved.