Free WiFi has become a common amenity for most of us. Free WiFi is now found almost everywhere from coffee shops and bars to restaurants and malls. Our lives have become so much dependent on the internet that most of us cannot even imagine a life without it. You might have noticed that you cannot leave your house without your smartphone.
The internet and the devices that are used to access the internet such as mobile phones have become an important necessity for most of us just like electricity & water.
Restaurants offering free WiFi to their customers enjoy many benefits, and those that don’t offer free WiFi are missing out on a lot. For starters, if you are not providing free WiFi to your customers then you are not fulfilling their expectations and it could result in customers being unhappy. We will be discussing some ways by which restaurants can benefit from offering free WiFi and why they should start offering free WiFi as soon as possible:
Drives In More Customers
Offering free WiFi helps to drive in more customers. When people plan to go out somewhere to eat, they have a huge variety of restaurants to choose from but if your restaurant is offering something unique, such as free WiFi then it is a good way to bring in more customers.
If a person is trying to decide between two restaurants of the same price range and quality but one of them has free WiFi for customers whereas the other one doesn’t, the person is most likely to dine at the restaurant that has free internet to offer.
Since most customers nowadays are Millennials who are connected to social media all the time, they would love to dine at a restaurant with free WiFi to offer. Even if someone is a lone diner, he would prefer a place with free WiFi so he can use the internet to spend his time.
Increases Sales
Not only does offering free WiFi help to drive in more customers but it also helps to increase sales. Customers who dine in at your restaurant and connect to the free WiFi network are likely to spend more time in your restaurants which can result in more sales. When a person connected to the WiFi dines in at your restaurant then he would be happy to order a dessert or another drink just so he can lengthen his stay and finish his work.
Some restaurants even go to the next level and offer promotions to their customers through the WiFi network. Some restaurants provide discounts to their customers for filling out a feedback form while others like McDonald’s offer free sandwiches to their customers for filling out their McDVoice feedback form.
In this way, restaurants can gather customer feedback that can help them to improve their services and also, gain customer loyalty if they are offering an incentive or a freebie.
Get Online Reviews From Customers
Another benefit of offering free WiFi to customers is that you can ask them to review your restaurant on the internet. After customers are done eating, you can ask them politely to give their feedback on the internet and if they liked your food and services, they would be more than happy to write positive reviews about your restaurants.
In the digital world that we are living in, online reviews matter a lot. Online reviews can make or break the reputation of a restaurant. This is why fast-food giants such as Taco Bell take online reviews very seriously and have launched user feedback programs like TellTheBell to get honest feedback from customers to improve their services and not to mention that you can get free WiFi at most Taco Bell eateries.
Free Promotion
By offering free WiFi to customers, you can also get free promotions through social media posts and shares. The current generation is addicted to social media and they love to take photos of themselves visiting fancy restaurants and eating fancy food. This can be a chance for you to promote your restaurant indirectly through your customers.
If your customers can access the internet and their social media handles while they are eating at your restaurant, they will most likely check in on Facebook, tweet a selfie with their friends, or share a pic of the food on Instagram.
You can make it even better by asking them to share or tweet a picture of their meal on social media with a hashtag that represents your restaurant for a chance to win a free meal or get a huge discount. This will not only promote your restaurant but also bring back people to your restaurant.
It is now evident that offering WiFi in your restaurant is a great thing to do and you would be a fool for not doing so, even after finding out the benefits of offering free WiFi.
