“I’d give this place 5 stars if the Wi-Fi wasn’t so awful.”
This doesn’t need to be your review.
Let’s face it – if you work within an industry where consumers spend more than a few minutes inside your building, you need to make Wi-Fi accessible to your customers.
Not only available, but if you want to create loyal customers, the Wi-Fi connection needs to be blazing fast, reliable, and easy to access by your patrons everywhere, at all times.
Consumer expectations are at the highest we’ve seen since the internet was invented; but unlike pre-internet days – today’s buyers are well-armed and willing to vocalize their pleasure, or rather, their displeasure if your establishment provides a poor customer experience.
In the hospitality industry, specifically hotel and lodging – the quality of your Wi-Fi connection can make or break your ability to retain and gain returning customers.
In fact, 83 percent of hotel guests will take time out of their busy day to report a bad Wi-Fi experience, 36 percent will not rebook with a brand if the Wi-Fi quality was poor.
If after searching your TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, Google My Business, or Yelp reviews you notice a common theme of complaints about your Wi-Fi, it’s time for your team to get serious about leveraging Wi-Fi as a revenue-generating asset.
Where could your business be with a 36 percent increase in revenue?
If that sounds desirable, keep reading, we’ll show you how to leverage managed Wi-Fi to support a 5-star customer experience.
Table of Contents
What is Managed Wi-Fi?
Sometimes called “Smart Wi-Fi”, a managed Wi-Fi system can intelligently orchestrate the connectivity of guest devices by automatically changing its connection to the access point with the strongest signal.
This is crucial when patrons move about your property to enjoy amenities such as your pool, fitness center, clubhouse, bar, or lounge.
A managed Wi-Fi system is more than smart access points. To be effective it must be a carefully choreographed enterprise-grade infrastructure.
The optimal buildout is comprised of distributed wireless access points, smart WLAN, switches, controllers, switches, and high-quality cabling, designed by a Managed Service Provider (MSP) or Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) that specializes in Wi-Fi as a Service (WaaS).
Additionally, there are some key differentiators of managed Wi-Fi for business:
- Access To A Team of Specialists – managed Wi-Fi is administrated by an outsourced team of specialists to ensure guaranteed uptimes, exceptional reliability, and support to ensure patrons receive the high-quality connection their entire stay.
- Lower IT Costs – managed Wi-Fi solutions reduce internal IT overhead, MSPs are consistently able to implement and maintain robust wireless solutions at a fraction of the cost than would be required to hire a host of in-house IT specialists to manage onsite IT support.
- 24x7x365 Proactive Monitoring – Hotels are open 24/7, shouldn’t your IT support be too? A managed Wi-Fi plan enables your team to have 24/7 around-the-clock access to professionals who can proactively optimize your network’s performance on the fly to ensure guests stay connected.
- Scalability – managed Wi-Fi services offer superior scalability by leveraging an MSPs vendor relationships and expertise to expand coverage or capacity as needed without experiencing any downtime.
- Hardened Security Protocols – 94 percent of hotel guests report that they are concerned with hotel Wi-Fi security and privacy protection. (HIS – Hospitality Wi-Fi Study) For good reason, after the Marriot International data breach debacle that occurred in November of 2018, and widespread headlines of other hotel breaches. It’s never been more important for the hospitality industry to focus on network security and defending its infrastructure against malicious threats.
Before discussing why businesses are taking advantage of Managed WLAN services to shift their Wi-Fi from a cost to a competitive advantage, let’s take a look at some key statistics.
Hospitality and Hotel Wi-Fi Statistics You Need to Know:
- 83 percent of hotel guests will take time out of their busy day to report a bad Wi-Fi experience
- 36 percent will not rebook with a brand if the Wi-Fi quality was poor
- 81% of guests have experienced a poor Wi-Fi experience in the last 12 months
- 76% of guests connect multiple devices to a hotel’s Wi-Fi
- 74% of frequent hotel travelers use an iPhone (n = 725)
- 41% of business travels report they’ve selected a hotel based on Wi-Fi access.
- 7 minutes – the average time a hotel guest takes to log onto Wi-Fi after entering a guest room
- 63% of hoteliers believe they can make improvements on Wi-Fi security and privacy
Is your hotel leveraging the best technology to improve the Wi-Fi experience, security, and privacy of your guests?
Why are Hotels Turning to Managed WLAN Services?
According to research, 85% of hotel guests now carry two or more devices when they travel. Thanks to the massive lift in mobile technology, more users are connecting more devices on the go than ever before.
If a hotel has 400 rooms, there may still be thousands of connected devices between employees, internal infrastructure, and guests.
The modern WLAN must support thousands of devices while delivering reliable enterprise-grade connectivity and security, from an easy and intuitive Wi-Fi access portal that doesn’t slow down guests.
In addition to the number of devices, customers demand high-speed connections that can support a multitude of simultaneous streaming services across all your guests.
Wi-Fi conditions are in constant flux and require steady attention from IT staff to manage well.
For most IT teams, it feels like a never-ending battle against user complaints about lost connections, dead spots, and agonizingly long waits for videos to buffer.
Managing a hospitality’s internet network can consume a tremendous amount of time and resources.
Taking advantage of wireless as a service solution allows your team to recoup this time and streamline the entire hotel Wi-Fi experience.
A managed Wi-Fi provider will take care of equipment, network configuration, and maintenance, ensuring you have a smooth, steady connection for everyone that needs it.
Your business can save time and money while freeing up internal resources to focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences that keep customers coming back.
Fully Managed Wi-Fi Services by Experts In Hospitality
Did you know that 70 percent of the hospitality market – and 86 percent of the world’s luxury properties rely on Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi to deliver first-class wireless connectivity that delights customers and builds long-term brand loyalty?
As a Certified Ruckus Partner, it’s something to brag about.
Whether you’re an exclusive beachside resort, historic B&B, or a downtown high-rise with hundreds of rooms, you need a technology partner who understands the hotel industry, your infrastructure, unique needs, and priorities.
An IT partner with the pedigree to deliver reliable and robust IT solutions that will help you delight customers with 5-star guest services, day-in, and night-out.
If customers are complaining about the quality of your Wi-Fi, call us today at 855.4IT.GUYS for a free IT Assessment we’ll run a full network diagnostic to identify dead zones, latency issues, and provide a personalized solution guaranteed to improve your guests’ wireless experience.
