Guest Wi-Fi is an invaluable technology for sectors spanning hospitality and healthcare, Shaun Bossons, CRO of Purple told IoT Insider in the latest episode of IoT Unplugged.
Purple was founded a decade ago in recognition of the frustrations consumers are confronted with regards to poor, patchy Wi-Fi in the venues they visit. Since then, it has evolved to support approximately 350 million users with 25 billion visits.
The company focuses on two main areas: guest Wi-Fi, which is used in environments such as hotels and restaurants – which provides Purple’s customers with an opportunity to customise offerings – and interactive digital maps, for indoor spaces such as working out how to navigate around an airport.
Guest Wi-Fi provides the security and personalisation that consumers of today are looking for. Logging into public Wi-Fi can present security risks. These advantages are reflected in the global guest Wi-Fi market, which Bossons said was robust and experiencing growth.
Another advantage of guest Wi-Fi is giving venues in-depth insights into what users are doing on their Wi-Fi, capturing data which they can utilise to provide better experiences. For instance, for the bricks and mortar retailers who are confronted with consumers used to and comfortable with shopping online, they can use guest WI-Fi to recommend loyalty programmes, and educate on click and collect services.
“All of these engagement pieces for a retailer need to happen in the venue, in the store,” said Bosson. “If that can happen then retailers can create great relationships with their customers in terms of hospitality.”
However, data needs to be handled sensitively and securely according to rules outlined by regulations like GDPR, and if venues providing guest Wi-Fi don’t adhere to that, they could be in serious trouble.
Besides retail, other sectors that could benefit from guest Wi-Fi include healthcare, using it to ask a couple of questions from patients who enter the hospital to subsequently tailor their experience, and airports, for travellers to receive information in their native language about travel arrangements out of the airport.
“If you’re not using guest Wi-Fi as a true part of your digital marketing strategy, you’re missing out on a massive opportunity,” concluded Bossons.
To learn about how guest Wi-Fi delivers the experience consumers want and gives companies the data they need to drive marketing, listen to the full podcast episode with Bossons, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and at the link below.
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