Category: WiFi Analytics

The Types of Restaurant Data You Should Start Tracking Today

Posted on February 17, 2021 by - WiFi Analytics

2023 marks a turning point for restaurants – the year in which data will be more essential than ever. The pandemic has demonstrated to food and beverage professionals how vital customer information can be, so it is time to start taking advantage of available restaurant data now.

We’ve compiled 5 types that all restaurateurs should track immediately to ensure success tomorrow.

5. Kitchen Data

 

Kitchen data has become an indispensable part of restaurant operations, enabling professionals to make informed decisions that help reduce expenses and optimize the customer experience.

For example, kitchen display systems provide up-to-date information on factors like average cook time per meal, speed of service delivery from the kitchen to table, or return on investment for items served – all essential in helping staff find ways to continuously improve efficiency within their establishments.

Understanding and improving kitchen data is essential for smooth restaurant operations. Kitchen data can help determine:

  • What is the average restaurant cook time per meal? (Real-Time Order Status)
  • How long does it take for a server to deliver food from the kitchen? (Speed of Service)
  • Which meals are the most lucrative? (Return on Investment)

Kitchen display systems can help restaurant professionals make crucial decisions based on data points like these. 

Of course, understanding these data is simply the first step. The purpose of obtaining these kitchen data is to consistently improve operational expenses in the kitchen while elevating the customer experience.

 

4. Guest Management Data

 

By leveraging Bloom Intelligence’s data, food & beverage leaders can use key metrics to make informed decisions and enhance customer experience.

The comprehensive understanding offered by guest management helps in determining wait times, order sizes, table turn rates and capacity during different days/times – empowering them to boost efficiency across the board – all with the aim of enhancing customer experience in their restaurants.

Interpreting guest management data is essential to improve customer experience, as well. Guest management data can help professionals understand:

  • What is the average wait time per customer?
  • How many people are included in one order?
  • How much time does it take to turn a table?
  • What is the capacity on average during specific days and times?

 

Bloom Intelligence helps food & beverage leaders acquire data to:

  • Improve wait times.
  • Expand party sizes.
  • Increase table turn times.
  • Grow capacity rates.

 

3. Email Campaign Data

 

Email campaigns are essential to the success of many businesses, and using data analysis can help ensure their effectiveness.

With a customer data platform (CDP), restaurants can track Opens (the number of subscribers who opened emails), Click Through Rates (subscribers that clicked a link in an email) as well as Inbox Delivery rates regarding their emails sent out.

Consistently improving subject lines, obtaining emails ethically with tools like a CDP, and providing clear messaging within 7 seconds are key for delivering successful click-throughs while also verifying list authenticity along the way – ultimately helping your establishment reach its goals via these methodologies.

Analyzing email campaign data is important to help improve many essential data points. 

Bloom Intelligence can help restaurants determine:

  • How many subscribers opened the email campaign? (Opens)
  • What is the amount of subscribers who clicked on a link in the email? (Click Through Rates)
  • What are the successful inbox delivery rates?

 

The following practices can help improve email campaign data:

  • Consistently improve subject lines to increase open rates.
  • Regularly and ethically obtain emails from customers using tools like Bloom Intelligence.
  • Improve email messaging to increase click-through rates. Customers should clearly understand the purpose of an email in 7 seconds and see a call to action button in each email. 
  • Use tools such as Bloom Intelligence to verify email list authenticity.

 

2. Social Media & Review Site Data

 

With the help of social media and review site data, restaurants can understand where their brand stands in terms of fan base and reach.

Furthermore, they’re able to measure how effective individual posts are by gauging engagement with customers as well as gaining insight into public opinion through reviews.

Armed with this knowledge, restaurants will be equipped to make strategic decisions on when best to post content that resonates with patrons for maximum visibility online.

Social media datasets can be tracked and managed with the help of tools like Hootsuite, SproutSocial, or Hubspot.

Social media and review site data are essential. They increase rapport and improve the visibility of restaurants in search engines.

Both social media and review site data can help restaurants understand:

  • How many social media fans and followers does the brand have? 
  • What is the average social media reach of a restaurant? (Reach)
  • The multitude of engagement per social media post. (Engagement Rates)
  • Determine the best days and times to post to social media.
  • The amount of positive and negative restaurant reviews online.

 

1. Customer Data

 

Restaurants rely heavily on customer data to foster meaningful relationships with their guests and gain valuable insights from their behaviors.

Collecting this information through Bloom Intelligence’s CDP helps food & beverage professionals build up a complete profile of each visitor, including contact details such as names, emails, phone numbers, and postal codes; milestones like birthdays and first visit anniversaries; favorite order items along with habitual purchasing habits, among many other metrics.

With these invaluable pieces of data in hand restaurants can easily identify the times customers choose to frequent them throughout the week/month/year – not forgetting how much time they spend while enjoying an experience at one of your locations.

Automated email campaigns can add a personal touch to your data, resulting in greater returns on investment. Utilizing this strategy could be the key to driving higher engagement with potential customers.

Customer data is the most important dataset for restaurants to obtain. Without customer data, food & beverage professionals cannot understand their customers. More importantly, they cannot reach them where they are. Customer data includes:

  • Names
  • Emails
  • Postal codes
  • Phone numbers
  • Birthdays
  • First visit anniversaries
  • Favorite meal items
  • Purchasing habits

Accumulating these data with Bloom Intelligence provides restaurants with a powerful CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool. The tool allows food & beverage professionals to understand the visit times, length of stay, and loyalty rates for each customer that walks through their doors.

Once visitors log into WiFi, restaurants can obtain names, emails, postal codes, phone numbers, birthdays, and more.

Then, these data can get added to automated Bloom Intelligence email campaigns. These campaigns can create an added layer of personalization, equating to increased campaign returns on investment.

Top 10 Ways That Restaurants Use Bloom Intelligence

Posted on February 5, 2021 by - WiFi Analytics

Significantly, data acquisition is an opportunity for agile restaurants in 2021. In another case, a threat to restaurants that are slow to change. Of course, many restaurant professionals appreciate data analytics, but have difficulties acquiring data. Indeed, this is ironic, considering the wealth of data that is available to restaurants through both foot traffic and online traffic.

4 Steps to Understanding Customer Data

Posted on January 30, 2021 by - WiFi Analytics

What is Customer Data?

Customer data can uncover essential information that restaurant professionals can utilize to create better management and marketing decisions. Bloom Intelligence can expose daily foot traffic, first-time visitors, average dwell time, popular visit times, dwell time by hour, first-time visitor return rates, average customer repeat rates, gender distribution, and much more.

Reasons to Benchmark Visit Lengths Using Dwell Time Data

Posted on August 5, 2020 by - WiFi Analytics

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 through agile adaptations to consumer demands for efficiency in every transaction. As digital payment ecosystems evolve, drawing from high-stakes environments where speed builds loyalty, instant payout casinos exemplify how immediate fund releases can turn one-time visitors into regulars by minimizing wait times. This principle carries over to everyday operations, where streamlining point-of-sale systems and reward redemptions fosters similar retention, ultimately bolstering competitiveness in fast-paced markets.

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!

How To Decrease Customer Churn With WiFi Analytics

Posted on May 19, 2020 by - Restaurant Marketing, WiFi Analytics, WiFi Marketing

Customer churn, also known as customer attrition, isn’t an isolated event. It’s a process that can start at any time, from when a potential customer first discovers your place of business, to when they finally become a repeat customer.

Your company’s strategy to combat customer churn must work similarly, providing an end-to-end solution — and it all starts with your data.

Growing Your Customer Database During The Coronavirus

Posted on April 8, 2020 by - Restaurant Marketing, WiFi Analytics, WiFi Marketing

As the world navigates the COVID-19 pandemic, restaurants and retail businesses are doing everything they can to stay afloat until they can re-open their doors for on-premise dining again.  

During these uncertain times, it is extremely important to continue communicating with your loyal customers and growing your customer database as quickly as possible.

The Importance of Customer Loyalty in 2025

Posted on December 11, 2019 by - Customer Loyalty, Restaurant Marketing, WiFi Analytics, WiFi Marketing

Why are loyal customers important?  It seems like an easy question to answer, but not all restaurant owners and operators understand how costly it is to lose, and then have to replace, their customers.  Plus, companies may be doing irreparable harm to their brand if they aren’t recognizing why customers aren’t loyal to their brand.

Many restaurant marketers underestimate the importance and value of their loyal customers. Others recognize the importance, but struggle to find a way to track customer loyalty and reward their loyal customers.

The Loyalty Landscape

Acquiring and keeping loyal customers is critical to the success of nearly every business. Of course, it is not always easy, especially with the amount of competition in the restaurant industry in 2025. Marketers can’t deny the importance of capturing the hearts and wallets of millennials, whose purchasing power is hit nearly $1.4 trillion in 2021.  Yet, millennials, and those following behind them, are a new and challenging type of customer to engage.

testing-personalization

The real trick is in customer retention.  This comes down to, among other things, customer service, access to information, brand recognition and special perks for repeat customers.  According to one digital marketing company, sixty-six percent (66%) of customers switch brands because of poor customer service.  Likewise, fifty-eight percent (58%) will never do business again with a company after a bad experience.

Conversely, over seventy percent (73%) of customers will fall in love with a brand just from friendly customer service representatives.  And, access to information will capture the hearts of fifty-five percent (55%) of customers.

Then, there’s the wallet factor.  Many customers are simply looking for the best deal. If one company isn’t offering it, loyalty to that company isn’t going to keep them from shopping elsewhere. Of millennials aged 20-34, sixty-eight percent (68%) would switch brands to get more program rewards.

Brand recognition is also important in 2025.  This may be due to people wanting to feel like the brand they love is loved by their peers. In the same way millennials turn to social media for personal reinforcement (hence, the popularity of status-sharing and selfie-taking), they also look for this with regards to the brands they choose to do business with.  It’s no surprise that brand recognition is just slightly behind quality as the most important driver of brand loyalty for millennials.

Why are Loyal Customers So Important in 2025?

Loyal customers provide the foundation for a profitable and successful restaurant business.  These valuable customers not only help a company grow quickly when times are good, but they also help companies stay afloat when times are tough.  Loyal customers are your best brand advocates.  And, they show their loyalty through their wallets, buying more and buying more often.

A loyal customer also costs a business less.  Once acquired, the company has spent what they need to spend upfront (at least for the most part).  Losing that customer means having to replace them, and paying the costs of client acquisition all over again. Loyal customers will stay up to date on the brand, find answers to questions, and are willing to spend their social capital on the brands they love.

Sip on this. Coffee is ubiquitous.  It’s cheap and you can find it anywhere.  To many, it “all tastes the same.”  Yet, a loyal customer will not only bypass a closer, more convenient shop, but they will bring their friends in, set up business meetings there, join the loyalty program, post Instagram photos of their cup o’ joe, and put up with a long wait or a mixed-up order. They’ll even tote around your branded tumbler if they really love you.

Yet, because of the prevalence of quality coffee shops, with an instance or two of poor service, a rise in price, or the growing popularity of another nearby shop, loyal customers may well be out the door.  Because the lifetime value of a customer is tied to business success, monitoring customer loyalty metrics is a good way of keeping an eye on the overall health of the business.

Here are some customer analytics metrics to which companies should pay attention.

1.  Customer Return Rate

In some ways, hotels have it easy in the brick-and-mortar space.  Each time a customer visits, they make a reservation.  So, it’s fairly easy to know how many times a customer returns.  For a retail store or restaurant, this isn’t so easy.  However, with a quality Wi-Fi analytics platform, it can easily be done.

Every cell phone has a unique identifier known as a MAC address, and your Wi-Fi hotspot can use this to identify individual customers, whether they log into WiFi or not. Every time they visit the store, the device will be recognized and those visits can be counted.  If you find that customers are not returning very frequently, you can work to address this with your marketing.  Over time, you can also create buyer personas so that you better understand individual customer patterns and customize your marketing, accordingly.

2.  Loyalty Program Sign-ups

Customer loyalty programs are important to perk-driven millennials. Wouldn’t it be nice to know how many customers who are presented with the opportunity to join your customer loyalty program sign up?  If you were to introduce the program with a seamless sign-up process as your guests log into your free wireless internet, you could have that data.

If you find that you’re struggling to get customers to join the program, you could survey your Wi-Fi users about what they look for in a loyalty or rewards program.  All you need to do so is implement custom messaging on your Wi-Fi connection landing page.  Or, offer a discount for signing in to the internet with an email. With that email address, you can invite them to join the program, reminding them of all the benefits they will receive.

3.  Churn Rate

Churn rates and customer loyalty go hand-in-hand.  If customer retention is low, it is indicative of a problem with the company’s ability to build and maintain loyal customers.

One way to track the churn rate is to track how much traffic fails to return to the location after they visit.  In tracking this metric, it is equally important to know the personas of the customers, so churn rates aren’t calculated as higher than they truly are.  Having the tools to identify and understand individual dining habits provides more accurate data.

Marketers can employ various tactics to avoid losing customers and improve customer retention.  One way is to quickly and effectively manage feedback.  Online reviews are becoming ever more critical to solicit and digest, as they can be a key indicator of why a company’s churn rate is higher than it should be.

Easily deployable tools such as a Wi-Fi marketing platform can provide guests with the opportunity to give instantaneous feedback, with the capability to send negative feedback to your customer relationship management team and positive feedback to online review websites.

4.  Net Promoter Score

A net promoter score tells a business how likely their customers are to recommend your product or service to others. This is an important component of customer analytics.  If few of your customers are willing to tell others about your brand, you may lack the base of loyal customers you need.

Tracking net promoter scores can be particularly easy if you offer free Wi-Fi at your locations.  When someone logs in, you can present the user with the question of “how likely are you to recommend our business to others?”  You could even consider requiring that customers answer this question before they connect.  With the response data, you can start to understand this important metric of customer loyalty.

If your net promoter score is low, you can consider what next steps you need to take to boost the experience your customers have.  Consider increasing opportunities for your customers to “bond” with the brand.  Host “limited-space” events, dedicate time to “like” and “share” photos your customers post on Instagram and Facebook, train your employees on ways to remember customers and their “usual” order.

One cannot overemphasize the importance of finding a tool that can track these key customer loyalty metrics.  Such a tool can help operators maintain a profitable and thriving business and can give marketers extra ammunition to fight brand wars. A Wi-Fi marketing and analytics platform that complements the free internet a business already offers to its guests is one tool to seriously consider.