The reality is that WiFi is a requirement for almost every business. Whether it’s for your staff, customers or systems; wireless internet enables you to conduct business efficiently.

When utilising WiFi, there are three critical questions you should ask:

  • Are we able to control who can access our WiFi, what they can access, and for how long?
  • Does our Guest WiFi tell you anything about our customers?
  • Does our WiFi have the necessary performance and range?

 

WiFi Security

With standard Wi-Fi equipment provided by your ISP, the Wireless access is passed onto your end users with little to no restrictions or control. Customers or staff can abuse their access, downloading illegal content, access other systems or perform malicious attacks. This can often lead to disruption in business processes or legal matters.

Wi-Fi and internet equipment that have inbuilt content filtering, security controls and access management can help stop these activities. A product that we use and recommend is Cisco Meraki. It provides a way to mitigate each security and access control and also provides an cloud control panel to manage, track and report.

 

Providing Guest WiFi

Most businesses don’t realise that Guest WiFi can provide great insight into their customer base and the ability to re-market to them.

Today we have technology that enables businesses to capture their customer information for business analytics and target marketing. Software services like Purple Wi-Fi enables all this to happen when paired with supported hardware such as Cisco Meraki. The process is simple for the customer, all they need to do is connect to the WiFi with their social media credentials, and the rest happens automatically! The user is securely authenticated to your network, while their name, email, age, sex, demographics and more is captured for analytics. You can then sync this information with Mailing lists like MailChimp and re-market to these customers at a later date.

 

Location Analytics

Smart WiFi also has the ability to monitor, track and report on how many WiFi devices interact with your network. Every WiFi device, whether connected or not, will interact with an access point. This means thousands of times a day, your customer’s mobile device is “pinging” hundreds of access points without them lifting a finger. With software technology, you can accurately report on the number of customers in your network. This acts as a powerful tool to track foot traffic, and with the right technology, even understand where your customers stand on your premises (within 2-5 meters).

 

Wireless performance and range

All this technology is great and very powerful when configured correctly. One major factor to consider is wireless performance, how well the signal covers your area and how well the clients are connecting. A poor wireless connection could lead to staff or customer dissatisfaction. Electrical equipment on the area could be impacting the performance of your wireless. Equipment such as microwaves, fridges, heaters or even neighbouring Wi-Fi points could be slowing down or disrupting your Wireless network. That’s why placing the access point in a line-of-sight with the end user is optimal, such as ceiling mounting. But also, making sure the wireless frequency is not overlapping a neighbouring wireless frequency. As trained certified Cisco Meraki partners, we can audit your environment and configure the equipment for optimal performance. Our goal is ensure your technology is working for you, not against you. Allowing you to focus on your business.

Have a chat to our consultants now to discuss your wireless options.