A growing number of small business owners are offering free WiFi to customers and guests. That’s because free guest WiFi has become an expected amenity — one that can help improve customer loyalty and increase sales. But, just as important, a guest WiFi network may also help businesses learn more about their customers.

Today’s advanced analytics capabilities and data metric tools can offer a wealth of information about small business customers. Here are just four examples:

• Presence — The number of visitors (devices) detected during different time slots throughout the day. Presence can be defined by both duration and location (sometimes referred to as “footfall”). Presence also includes dwell time, or the number of visitors/devices and the amount of time they were detected on the guest WiFi network, along with the amount of time they spent in a specific location.
• Demographics — The authentication methods used by guests to log into your guest WiFi network. Gender and age information can be generated from the guest’s log-in credentials if they log into your guest WiFi using social media credentials.
• Conversion — The number of unique visitors who entered the guest network zone. Conversion data can also show loyalty, or the number of times a unique visitor connects to the guest network in a particular location.
• WiFi usage — The amount of download data, upload data and total data transferred at a particular location, over a particular time period and per Service Set Identifier (SSID).

Customer insights like these are no longer limited to large businesses with large budgets. Even small organizations can take advantage of WiFi network-generated information to learn more about the customer experience and make wise, data-driven decisions that will help grow their business.