You have probably heard of the captive portal or hotspot concept and have a general idea about this tool. But, do you really know everything it can contribute to your business?
If you are looking for a way to improve the data collection of your customers or you are looking for solutions that help you increase direct sales, a captive portal is a powerful marketing and loyalty tool. In this article we reveal what it consists of, its benefits and how to get the most out of it.
What is a captive portal hotspot?
A captive portal or WiFi hotspot is a tool that allows you to control and manage access to WiFi networks through an authentication or login process. Through this system it is possible to collect information about users in exchange for enabling access to a quality WiFi network.
How does a captive portal hotspot work?
- Portal login: First, When the user accesses the Internet, he is redirected to an access or login portal.
- Authentication process: Secondly, the user must fill in the access form and thus complete the authentication process. We can request the information that we are interested in obtaining.
- social login: We can offer the user the possibility of logging into our WiFi network through their Facebook or Instagram social profiles. All this information would be collected in an own database, very interesting for future campaigns.
- landing landing page: Once registration is complete, the hotel can choose where to direct the user. It could be the corporate website or a landing specific where, for example, promote services or discounts. An interesting option for improve the upselling of each client.
WEBINARS ON DEMAND!
Discover the Cerium WiFi captive portal and its advantages
Generate recurring income, improve your loyalty actions, get more reviews thanks to its functionality based on artificial intelligence and much more!
Captive portal in hospitality
For the hospitality sector, implementing a captive portal is the best way to keep track of the use of the WiFi network. Through this tool it is possible to manage the bandwidth that we offer to our clients or control the moment in which a user's sessions must expire (for example, because they are no longer in the establishment).
On the other hand, the captive portal offers a greater guarantee of security and control over the resources that users have visited while browsing. In this way we can avoid fraudulent theft of data, both from the hotel and from the different users staying with access to the same network.
It may interest you: 5 basic tips to choose the best WiFi solution for hotels
Advantages of a WiFi captive portal for hotels
Offering quality Wi-Fi internet access means providing added value to the customers of your hotel establishment. To offer the best WiFi service, it is essential to control access to the network and be able to optimize the available bandwidth for each user profile.
Among the advantages of having a hotspot captive portal in our hotel business are:
1. Obtaining guest data through a captive portal
How many users visit your hotel each year without you having any contact information? The main advantage of captive portals is that they allow you to have a better understanding of the different profiles or people who visit your hotel, being especially interesting for those visitors who come from reservations through OTAs.
2. Improvement of direct sales: optimization of marketing and loyalty campaigns
One of the most powerful features of having a captive portal is that allows you to implement WiFi marketing campaigns, a novel technique that uses the guest WiFi of an establishment with the following objectives:
- Create automated marketing campaigns based on the different customer profiles.
- Analyze customer data y use them to make operational decisions sales and marketing: price policy, discounts, promotions, etc.
- Identify and individualize each client through inclusion of a unique code on each device. This allows you to send personalized offers or discounts, among other possibilities.
3. Notoriety and positioning: dissemination of the hotel stay through RRSS
The improvement in the quality of the WiFi service will contribute to the client himself acts as an "ambassador" of our hotel or of its brand or corporate image, especially by publishing reviews or positive posts on social networks like Instagram or portals like TripAdvisor. In addition, the portal itself may include the obligation to share or follow on social networks, a new tool that favors word of mouth.
4. Personalized messages to your guests
A captive portal also makes it possible to establish direct communications with guests through the sending personalized messages. It is a very effective method to generate immediate stimuli in them.
Likewise, a captive portal hotspot can become the communication channel par excellence, since the hotel can share information in all formats (text, videos, images...) in a direct way and with great capacity to impact the client.
5. Network security
Have an open WiFi network, or with a generic key for all guests, you can seriously compromising data security of users, there being a serious danger of theft and fraudulent use of sensitive information, such as bank details since we do not know who browses our networks...
This system significantly increases security, since at all times you can have identified users who connect and disconnect from the network and generate additional security measures such as: permanent control of the guests, generation of different permissions with authorization levels differentiated, blocks and alarms before any attempt of computer hacking, etc.
6. Control over web traffic
Possible control web traffic in order to optimize the connection and ensure that customers enjoy, at all times, a connection of high quality, fluid, secure and without cuts or interruptions.
7. Legal certainty
This system allows comply with regulations, increasingly demanding, on computer security and digital data protection. In this way, we reduce the risks of suffering significant penalties or facing compensation arising from the theft of customer data.
Cerium's 'H-SECURE', the most secure and advanced hotspot in the hotel sector
At Cerium we have developed a WiFi hotspot for hotels, a plataform that manages customer access to a hotel Wi-Fi network, implementing the security, identification and control they need
Through the implementation of 'H-SECURE' we achieve: network security as it blocks access to unauthorized devices and the identification of connected users. It also allows the control of connections and their consumption, including the blocking of users or devices.
In addition, our captive portal system is specially designed to successfully implement WiFi marketing campaigns with endless possibilities: establish direct communications with guests, send them personalized offers, promote our hotel services or improve ratings on social networks or portals. of reservations.
So, how is the CERIUM captive portal different from the rest of the portals that exist in the sector? H-SECURE by Cerium is the only one on the market that incorporates a IP POLICE service that allows you to save a historical record of all the IPs connected to the hotel. In this way, if a crime occurs through hotel networks, hoteliers can provide information about its origin and responsible party to the competent authorities to avoid suffering damage to their reputation or liability.
Fill out this form and receive more information about our Hotspot captive portal: