Take a walk through the main business district or shopping center in your town, and the signs are everywhere: Free WiFi! All types of small businesses are developing a WiFi plan now, and for good reason.

Implementing WiFi in your small business can have a direct influence on your bottom line. Consider its impact on retail businesses alone. According to research from global research and advisory firm IHL Group, nearly a third of retailers have experienced a positive impact on customer loyalty as a result of offering in-store WiFi, with an associated two percent increase in sales. Slightly more than 20 percent of retailers say it increases the time customers stay in the store.

Whether you run a retail business or other type of small business, there are a number of benefits to implementing WiFi. With the right small business WiFi solution, you can:

• Improve customer engagement. Offering free WiFi to your customers can make them linger longer, buy more or even be more patient while they wait for their service. Plus, you can use your WiFi splash page to offer specials, promotions and coupons that create loyal, returning customers.
• Set the WiFi parameters for your business. What if you don’t want folks to overstay their welcome because you have limited parking or don’t want people outside your business to access your network? The right solution lets you set parameters for how long and during what hours people can access your WiFi network.
• Protect your mission-critical bandwidth. With the right small business WiFi solution, you can separate your public guest WiFi from your private business WiFi and cap the amount of bandwidth available to the public WiFi so your business WiFi is always available.
• Choose the content filters right for your customers. You decide what type of Internet content is viewable through your WiFi, to help your business maintain a family-friendly image.

We’ll delve into these topics and others in future Community posts so you can learn more about how your small business can benefit from WiFi.