Make Your Customers Feel at Home – Give Them Free Public Wifi
“Consumers want Wifi on the High Street, for the same reason as we want it at home. It’s almost like a God-given right”
The world has changed a lot since the creation of the internet. The modern consumer all-but lives online. Even while shoppers are walking around your store they want to access the net. Customers want to be able to send and receive messages from their friends. They want to be able to check their social media and emails. It’s something modern shoppers are used to having at their fingertips and they don’t expect that to change when they step into your shop.
Some shoppers have jobs that require them to be accessible at all times, in case of emergency. Some shoppers have significant others that require them to be permanently connected online. Others are just addicted to social media and want to be able to post their every move, as they move. Giving these people access to the net means they don’t need to break their online connection to visit your shop.
For many other people though, it’s not so much that they need to check messages and send emails. Rather it’s lacking a connection that makes them uncomfortable. These shoppers won’t necessarily spend much time online, in your shop, but if they know they can’t they won’t be as comfortable in your shop.
Why do I want my customers to be comfortable? We’re a shop, not a spa
Comfortable customers will be in less of a hurry to leave. Which in turn means they’ll spend morecustomer experience money, as well as time, in your shop. Taking a longer look at your products, comfortable in your in-store experience. Meanwhile a customer that isn’t comfortable, or is raring to leave your shop so they can reconnect with their friends online, will spend less time, less money and be less likely to come back to your shop again. Comfortable customers are happy customers and happy customers become loyal customers.
And there are some hidden perks…
Give your customers internet access and what will they do? Statistically speaking they’ll be messaging their friends and browsing social media. Why is this a good thing? Because when they message their friends they’ll be talking about you. When they post on their Facebook they’ll be posting about you. When they take selfies and Snapchat with their friends, they’ll be spreading pictures of your shop, with your products all around them.
Giving your customers free wifi access might be the best social-media decision you ever make. It gives them the power to spread the word about you to all their friends and family on the internet. It lets your customers advertise your shop and your products. Even if someone takes a picture of an interesting product and doesn’t buy it. The friends that they share that picture with are all customers in waiting. You might find that a customer has posted about a product that isn’t quite their style, but they know someone it would be perfect for. These shoppers will send the picture to their friend and do as good a better job of marketing your product than any marketing scheme.
Check out this special offer on wifi from XLN, for SaveTheHighStreet.org members.
If you’d like to know more about what wifi can do for your shop, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
