Small commercial property business owners are missing out on millions of likely customers and potential revenue, all because they are not offering wireless access in their premises.
The findings come from new research commissioned by The Cloud, the public access Wi-Fi provider.
The public access Wi-Fi provider, a BSkyB company, authorised the survey of over 2,000* consumers and 200 small commercial property business owners-including hoteliers, café owners and hairdressers-to measure public appetite for Wi-Fi and see how small to medium sized enterprises (SME’S) were responding to this request.
59%, nearly six in ten small commercial property business owners surveyed said they don’t offer Wi-Fi, with 44% saying they had no plans to do so, despite the request from customers.
Commercial properties such as coffee shops demonstrate an example of this. One in 10 consumers, which is equivalent to 4.5 million people, said they would go to big brand commercial property coffee shops instead of smaller or independent ones, simply because the big brands offer Wi-Fi. This figure rose to almost one in five consumers (19%) in London.
The research found that one in four Londoners (25%) and the same number of 18-34 year olds nationally (25%) said that the readiness of Wi-Fi was an issue when choosing which coffee shop to go to.
The research also found that Wi-Fi is ever more thought of as a standard facility; with 21% (over one in five people) saying they now assume free Wi-Fi will be available in any commercial property coffee shop they visit.
Nearly one in three people surveyed (30%) said they think smaller or independent coffee shops are disregarding potential customers by not offering Wi-Fi.
Concurrently, almost one in five small commercial property business owners (18%) acknowledged that they had given out their personal Wi-Fi details in the past, so that customers can access the internet on their premises. This can potentially put the small business’ internet security at risk along with straining personal connections never designed for public use.
Of the 45% of small commercial property business owners who said they had been asked for Wi-Fi on their premises, over half (61%) said they had been asked “often or very often”.
The research comes as The Cloud unveils its ‘Cloud In A Box’ product, which has been designed as a simple, reliable and easy-to-use service clearly designed for small commercial property businesses.
The simple product allows small commercial property businesses to offer free Wi-Fi to their customers in their premises for a sum of £99 plus a monthly charge of £5.49. Offering this service will inevitably keep customers happy and visiting more often.
Managing Director at The Cloud, Vince Russell, said: “Every company has to focus obsessively on catering to customers’ demands, but this is especially true of small businesses which are under pressure as never before. In recent years the public has come to expect that they’ll be able to get fast, reliable Wi-Fi access wherever they are and our research suggests that many smaller businesses are missing out on custom and revenue because they aren’t delivering what these customers expect.”
He further added: “We’ve launched Cloud In A Box as a solution tailored to this market of SME’s such as local coffee shops, B&Bs and hairdressers who want to offer Wi-Fi but don’t want to worry about the technological and legal aspects themselves.”
*Study of 2,026 UK adults and 200 small business owners (SME’s), August 2011, by Opinium.
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