• Consumer Behavior
  • WiFi Analytics

Reasons to Benchmark Visit Lengths Using Dwell Time Data

by: Allen Graves
3 min read

Many restaurants and retail companies spend a lot of time and effort courting customers. 

Resources, finances, and considerable thought go into attracting, drawing, and eventually converting visitors into loyal customers

However, many companies do not evaluate one of the most important metrics for their locations: how long visitors dwell on property.

Dwell time can be defined as the amount of time that guests spend inside a store or restaurant. Some people also refer to dwell time as “visit length.”

Bloom Intelligence allows businesses to easily track dwell times to improve their operations and increase profits.

girl shopping with visit length tracking

The Big Picture

Restaurants and retail companies alike are finding it increasingly necessary to grow customer bases, improve customer conversion rates, and meet customer expectations.

But why should businesses care about dwell times?

1. Increasing Profits

Many restaurants place a high amount of importance into turning over each table two to three times each night.

The more guests that dine at a specific place, the more revenue a location will receive. 

Similarly, when retail customers can easily find what they are looking for in a retail location, the more room a store will have for guests entering to shop. 

According to Vend, retailers process an average of 482 transactions per store every month. 

The more guests can comfortably browse a store over a specific timeframe; the more revenue retail stores are likely to receive.

2. Improving Conversion Rates

If customers have to wait outside of a location or within a line for too long, they’ll leave.

The better that dwell time flows, the more conversions a specific place is likely to receive.

3. Meet Customer Expectations

If a location advertises a quick shopping or dining experience, it’s essential to track the delivery of these expectations.

Likewise, if a place touts exceptional and higher-priced experiences, short dwell times could signal a failure to meet expectations. Additionally, short dwell times could indicate poor conversions. 

4. Improved Staffing

According to Toast, 51% of restaurant operators name staffing as a top challenge to success. 

Proper evaluation of dwell times can better enable restaurant owners (and retail owners) to determine staff schedules based almost explicitly on peak traffic times. 

Better timeclock management can allow operators to manage staffing budgets more wisely, resulting in better money management.

With Bloom Intelligence, dwell time tracking enables businesses to gauge how long customers are visiting. This feature can provide valuable insight into what is and what isn’t working.

two women drinking coffee at restaurant while dwell time is tracking

The Finer Points

If customers are spending more time on property, they are likely to spend more money.

The longer a customer is on the premise, the better for business. 

The list of benefits and reasons for improving and evaluating dwell time is considerable.

Dwell time analytics can help isolate potential problems, which can positively impact the entire business.

How Visitor Data is Collected

Devices, such as cellphones, allow for Wi-Fi detection.

These devices acquire data within a specific Wi-Fi broadcast radius. 

The devices detected are registered and denoted as a “visitor” in the Bloom Intelligence dashboard system.

Businesses can track and monitor this data to determine metrics such as the duration of visits and new visitor rates.

Bloom Intelligence catalogs, structures, and monitors data and divides results to produce daily, weekly, monthly, and even all-time perspectives. 

Merging these metrics with the duration of visit times creates the average dwell time, resulting in better management insights.

woman is tracked while shopping with dwell time analytics

Wi-Fi is A Win for Everyone

It is increasingly essential for companies to track which marketing strategies work and which promotions are the most effective. 

Owners can utilize data from Bloom Intelligence to improve customer experience and reveal where businesses can grow.

Information is power, particularly when the competition ignores the opportunity to do the same.” ~ Mark Cuban

If your competition is benefiting from Wi-Fi technology, can you afford not to? If your competitors are not using Wi-Fi technology, can you afford not to? Whether it is about keeping up or getting ahead, Bloom Intelligence can deliver insights to improve your business. Now that’s power!

Restaurant Marketing FAQs

What is Restaurant Marketing?

Restaurant marketing is the process of getting people to visit your restaurants. Restaurant marketing creates loyalty, provides data to research, analytics, and allows restaurants to gain a better understanding of their ideal customer profile. It utilizes all customer channels: guest WiFi, website, social, rating sites, mobile apps, email, text, and advertising.

Learn More About Restaurant Marketing Here

What is WiFi Marketing?

WiFi marketing is a marketing technique that uses guest WiFi to collect & clean customer data such as names, emails, phone numbers, customer behavior, and demographics. This data is used to personalize marketing campaigns to increase customer loyalty, build online reviews, and save at-risk customers. The performance of every campaign can be tracked down to the tangible ROI of a customer walking back in your door.

Learn More About WiFi Marketing Here

What is Restaurant Reputation Management?

Restaurant reputation management is the process for restaurants to manage customer feedback and creating systems to improve customer experiences, passively build positive online reviews, and save at-risk customers. It is a very important aspect of running a successful restaurant business.

Learn More About Restaurant Reputation Management Here

How Does Bloom Identify and Bring Back Lost Customers?

Bloom Intelligence uses machine learning to identify at-risk customers. When one is recognized, the system will send them a message with an incentive to get them to return and re-establish their visit pattern. Bloom users are seeing up to 37% of churning customers return.

Learn More About Saving At-Risk Customers Here

SAVE TIME, INCREASE CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUES, CREATE NEW CUSTOMERS

What our happy customers
are saying

“SaaS that covered so many bases for us instead of having to use multiple software products. Bloom Intelligence has simplified our responses to reviews, customer feedback, and more. I highly recommend Bloom Intelligence.”

Robert Sanderson

“Bloom Intelligence really is a step ahead in terms of marketing software and metrics. Their product is reliable, fast and innovative and has helped the company I work for really grow.”

John Marchetti

“Working with Bloom Intelligence has been amazing. They assist you every step of the way and work with you hand in hand to make sure you are optimizing your advertising potential. We are excited to use this tool to help learn more about our customers so that we can personally engage with them and understand our strengths/weaknesses.”

Ariel Ramirez

“In these challenging times, it has been a pleasure working with Bloom Intelligence to help facilitate our service offering to our clients. They were extremely responsive and provided support to mitigate risk and minimize revenue loss. Great partner!”

Stefan Kim

“We’re extremely pleased with the wealth of customer data that we’re able to gather, at a very attractive price.  In addition, we’re able to communicate our new product promotions by using  the landing page as a digital billboard.  A “no-brainer” for anyone working with limited Marketing $$.”

Bob Cross, Vice President of Operations

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