The Critical Link between Secure Guest Wi-Fi and Loyalty in the Hospitality Industry

The customer experience or CX for short has become a competitive differentiator in many sectors, and perhaps none more than in hospitality. More intimate than ecommerce and longer lasting, a stay in a hotel is both a challenge and an opportunity for hospitality providers to enhance CX and reap the benefits – higher customer satisfaction, greater loyalty, more word of mouth recommendations to other potential customers, and, of course, improvement to the bottom line.

Where is the Battle for Revenue Being Fought?

So far, we’re probably preaching to the converted. After all, would any hospitality provider not want such benefits? The question is how. The battleground for winning the hearts of customers, their loyalty and their advocacy is no longer in soft bedlinen and happily smiling staff. It’s not even in a broadband network socket. Yes, you still need to offer these. However, they have become “hygiene factors,” to use Frederick Herzberg’s term. In other words, if you don’t provide them, your customers won’t come back. Yet on their own, they are not enough to get customers to pick your establishment over others.

The Importance of Wi-Fi to Hotel Customers

The crux of competitiveness is now superior connectivity. Note the word “superior.” We’ll talk about that more below. Customers are now accustomed to being able to connect with their mobile devices, wherever they are. At work, at home, on the road, they expect wireless connectivity, usually for free. When it comes to hotels, 82 percent of respondents to a recent Accenture survey said in-room Wi-Fi was important, and 66 percent said property-wide Wi-Fi was important in their booking decisions. That means that from the bedroom to the bar to lobby to the parking lot, hotels need to have secure wireless connectivity covered.

Getting Wi-Fi Right

Proper coverage means a strong signal and lots of bandwidth with low latency, with the flexibility to handle all sorts of customer connectivity needs. Guest Wi-Fi enables hotels to safely offer guests  free connectivity and also to insert promotional communications specific to that premise (in-browser content insertion) to measure interest and encourage uptake.  Streaming video and music for vacationers, web chats and video conferences for business users, whatever customers do at home or at work is what they expect to be able to do at their hotel too. Yet over and above this, good Wi-Fi networking is also a channel over which hospitality providers can monetize new services to customers, services that will set their establishments apart in the eyes of their patrons. Affordable technology also lets hotels advertise on the Wi-Fi channel to bring customers special offers (weekend stays, massages, restaurant deals, and so on), and other items of interest. In fact, social media engagement, App on-boarding are some of the conveniences/engagements customers like that the hotel property can benefit out from.

Beyond connectivity and engagement,  captive portals with social login can allow creating user profiles that enable target returning customers through personalized emails while precise user management can help with bandwidth throttling on a per user basis so no one user consumes all the bandwidth.

Opening Up New Opportunities to Wow Customers

Opportunities include user-centric applications that let hotel guests use their mobile devices to tailor conditions to their convenience even before they arrive in their room. Examples are remotely adjusting temperature, lighting, and window blinds. Apps for room service, maps of the hotel to see other room choices available, and two-way video communications with hotel staff are all possible. As hotels increasingly connect themselves to the Internet of Things, more opportunities arise to cosset customers via their smartphones and tablets. And with secure and reliable Wi-Fi, more opportunities arise as well for customers to jump onto their favorite social media and sing the praises of their hotel to others.

Make Sure Staff Are On Board Too

Customers may well expect hotel staff to be just as connected as they are. Bumping into an employee in the corridor and asking a question should not mean having to wait for the answer to be fetched all the way from the front desk, especially if the employee is equipped with a smart phone and a Wi-Fi connection. With a fast and secure guest Wi-Fi solution to neatly divide employee access from customer access to the hotel’s Wi-Fi facility, security can also be maintained for the hotel’s own IT installation.

Bottom Line

In summary, Wi-Fi for hospitality providers is now where it’s at. Smart providers will seize the opportunity to acquire larger chunks of mindshare and loyalty from customers through good network performance, nifty apps, and properly equipped staff, all with the ease of use and security to make their hospitality customer experience second to none.

RaGaPa’s CaptiveXS solution combines all the essential Wi-Fi services into a unified platform managed through a cloud-based dashboard. With CaptiveXS, RaGaPa’s innovative content insertion technology can deliver even more relevant content to the connected users in real-time. The other key CaptiveXS features include – Captive Portal with Social Login, Content Filtering, Deep User Analytics and User Management. Learn more at www.captivexs.com