5 Reasons to Implement WiFi in a Restaurant

WiFi in a restaurant is a standard these days. However, not everyone is fully aware of how important wireless network access is to making customers feel as comfortable as possible.

75% of people surveyed think that WiFi is the second (right after coffee) most important attribute of a good café. What do people do in a café or in a restaurant? They reach for their smartphones in order to text their friends on Messenger or post pictures of food on Instagram and Facebook. Statistics confirm that 29% of people use Facebook or Twitter during dining. It is important to take advantage of the situation in which a customer uses wireless network – and that can be done by intelligent WiFi. The network we most commonly encounter at the restaurants is just a tool connecting us to the internet. A customer walks in, uses the internet and walks out, never leaving a trace. Thanks to Social WiFi it is possible to identify a customer and engage him in a two-way communication. How can such a tool be used?

1. Get to know your customer

Restaurants are visited by customers for different reasons. Some of them only visit for a short lunch during a break from work, others for a family dinner or for a date, but whatever their reason is, in most cases they connect to a WiFi network. Acquired information and the operations based on them using Social WiFi might significantly improve relations with the users. Even before logging in, when the user connects to the network, cookies are gathered that allow us to display Facebook Ads and Google Ads to him. When the customer logs in with available social media services or an email address, we can use this data to contact him personally, for example by mailing.

2. Marketing through referrals

Social WiFi transforms an average restaurant into a modern meeting place. The system is connected to social media. By using them the customers can share their location on their News Feed and tell their friends about being in the restaurant. Assuming that every customer has at least 200 friends on Facebook and at least 10 people per day check in at your venue, the information gets to at least 2000 people per day. A lot, isn't it? According to statistics 50% of people learn about restaurants and cafes on social media, so it is important to be present there.

3. Secret shopper online

Two pillars of every good restaurant are good food and good service – and both of those things need to be monitored all the time. If you use Social WiFi, every person who logged in to your network will receive an email after leaving. The customer will be able to rate his visit on a scale from 1 to 5 stars and additionally write his own opinion, which will only be visible to the manager or restauration owner with access to administration panel. Social WiFi is also integrated with TripAdvisor. When a customer rates his visit a 5, he is encouraged to also post his opinion on TripAdvisor. If he rates it lower, he will receive a form questioning him about his dissatisfaction. This way the manager can offer compensation and discourage the customer from posting an unfavorable review on social media or on TripAdvisor. This sort of integration increases the rating and position of the restaurant on opinion-making portals and additionally eliminates things such as staff errors that customers pay attention to.

4. Effective WiFi marketing and mailing

There is about 100,000 restaurant and bar venues in Poland. How to stand out from the crowd? Social WiFi is used by the largest restaurant chains in Poland such as Sphinx or Gusto Dominium, but also by smaller, local restaurants that want to go with the flow and benefit from intelligent WiFi. After gathering the customer data Social WiFi allows to conduct active marketing campaigns in the form of mailings, which due to acquired data might be very specifically targeted. Social WiFi also makes it possible to inform customers about special offers in real-time. After logging in every user will see a Facebook-integrated welcome site, which you can edit as you wish with the use of a simple creator. Restauration owner might include graphics and videos containing information about offers and contests or the restaurant’s menu at will.

5. Building loyalty

It is expected that until 2020 there will be about 24 billion devices connected wirelessly to the internet. For this reason, it is important to focus on WiFi as a tool not only for promotion, but also for building loyalty. If a customer leaves you an opinion, you can contact him, offer him a bonus and make him more attached to you. By sending him special offers you can also make him come back more often. Remarketing works in a similar way – if someone has already been to your restaurant, it means he is 100% certain to be a part of your target audience. This means Social WiFi allows for active, non-invasive, targeted contact with your customers, which makes it an asset both to you and to its receivers.