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News

Product & integration updates and the latest news from Wireless Social.

Wireless Social are now part of The Access Group

This acquisition significantly enhances Wireless Social's capabilities, offering innovative solutions and access to consumer insights for UK hospitality operators. The focus is on deepening technology integrations.

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An interview with...

Introducing our Change Director Helen, who spend her time managing multiple projects, implementing new processes and coming up with ways to improve the efficiency of our team. It's all in a day's work!

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An interview with...

Get to know Ben Kendall, Activation Manager on the Hedgehog team. Ben spends his time matching up drinks brands with hospitality venues to run mutually-beneficially voucher campaigns, and get free drinks into the hands of guests when they login to the venue Wi-Fi.

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International Women's Day!

In honour of International Women’s Day on Monday 8th March, here are some of the women that have inspired us to be the best we can be.

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An interview with...

Get to know our long-standing IT Director Michael Helm, who has kindly answered a series of quick-fire questions. Michael is a familiar face to the majority of our customers and industry partners, always on hand to solve issues big or small with a witty comment.

How long have you worked at Wireless Social?

I joined Iknow UK in Feb 2007 as the companies Database Administrator and took over the running of the development and IT shortly after. In 2014 I worked with Julian on the new Wireless Social product, offering it to customers at the time. As Iknow UK transitioned to Wireless Social, I find that my time is spent working on the technical side of the business.

What’s the best thing about working at Wireless Social?

Over the years I have had the opportunity to try out lots of different technologies, from data analysis tools, Wi-Fi hardware and software to managing the company I.T. as it’s grown, and through to home working in 2020, I enjoy working with all aspects of technology.

Who’s your favourite employee - shout out time!

John Farrimond! :D (we share a special day)

What’s your favourite customer to visit and eat at on the weekend?

TGI Fridays (or Fridays as it’s now known). Been a family favourite from before they became customers of Wireless Social. Along with Frankie & Bennies and Ed’s Easy Diner. Favourite menu item: Black and Blue Burger!

What’s your most exciting thing to work on at Wireless Social?

Crunching numbers and working with our servers to process millions of lines of data a day.

What’s your favourite quote you’ve ever heard a colleague say?

“I’ve brought in some cakes”.

Best piece of advice to anyone working here?

I believe the best thing we can do is to be honest with ourselves and our customers, that is something that runs through the company and the teams we have.

Most inspiring quote?

Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence (Carl Sagan)

Order Bee & Wireless Social Launch Integration – December 2020

Orderbee has become the first mobile order and pay platform to integrate with Wireless Social and Hedgehog. This now means for operators, Hedgehog can be run on a 100% digital platform, when the guest signs up the Hedgehog via Wireless Social, the promotional voucher will instantly go into your Order Bee wallet and be applied at checkout.

With the current COVID-19 regulations in place, it provides a seamless, less contact way to help drive footfall and spend via Hedgehog.

Wireless Social Invest Half A Million Into Growing The Team – December 2020

Wireless Social has pledged to further support its customers by investing £500,000 into growing the Customer Success and Account Management teams. The restructure is one part of Wireless Social’s ongoing focus on ensuring their customers get the most out of their data to help them develop their business strategies.

New roles include a Senior Account Director, Head of Hedgehog and Head of Customer Success, as well as further roles within these teams to strengthen the support to customers.

Vagabond Runs First Hedgehog Promotion – November 2020

Vagabond, the popular London wine bar brand, launched its first Hedgehog campaign between September and November. The Hedgehog solution allowed a popular premium lager brand to sponsor a promotion, triggering vouchers to guests when they log into the Wi-Fi offering them a free pint of their premium lager.

The campaign helped drive footfall into the venues and drove the drinks suppliers’ sales, a win-win.

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Wireless Social Welcomes Dirty Martini, Ole & Steen and Megan’s To The Family – September 2020

This month saw one of the UK’s favourite artisan bakeries, one of the UK's top cocktail bars and an extremely popular neighbourhood restaurant join Wireless Social.

Megan’s took on our Wi-Fi and social connectors, enabling them to track and target their guests and lookalike audiences. Ole & Steen and Dirty Martini alongside this, took our Presence data on to further help them understand their footfall and demographics to aid their marketing strategies.

Pret Takes On Wireless Social Presence Data - August 2020

The international renowned coffee shop brand Pret has taken on Wireless Social’s Presence sensors in the UK to help them understand what footfall is passing their stores and what percentage of that is converting into sales.

CGA Strategy & Wireless Social Enter Into A Strategic Alliance In The UK Hospitality Market – June 2020

CGA, data and research consultancy for the out-of-home food and drinks market, have entered into a strategic partnership with guest behaviour and analytics specialists, Wireless Social.

CGA has long been the consultancy of choice for market measurement, consumer research and location planning for the UK hospitality sector. Wireless Social works with major pub, casual dining, and leisure brands, providing Wi-Fi technology, enabling customer data collection, including footfall and guest profile analytics. The partnership comes at a time of great importance for the sector as the combined data is set to be key to help operators in their recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

Under the new agreement, Wireless Social will be sharing aggregated footfall metrics and demographic data. Existing CGA and Wireless Social customers will have access to a series of enhanced insights alongside existing reports such as the On-Premise Measurement model, Outlet Index, Volume Pool Advanced Analytics and other consumer research, analytic and measurement services. The addition of the new data will highlight key benchmark analytics demonstrating footfall trends, visit frequency and recency, and by demographic segments.

Wireless Social has been reporting on footfall trends throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with the data being used by many leading operators, Government bodies, and other influential think tanks, to support decision-making and to report on the changing situation. It is hoped that the combined data sets will, for the first time, provide a much clearer picture of the situation in the street and in venues, especially as we start to emerge from the lockdown.

Wireless Social Receives Investment From Imbiba – Jan 2020

Imbiba announces investment in Wireless Social.

Darrel Connell, Partner at Imbiba commented, ‘We are delighted to partner with the team at Wireless Social. Our investment enables ongoing tech innovation, including the development of a new-to-market platform designed to simplify brand-sponsored email and SMS campaigns in real-time, when consumers are in the venues. This platform, branded Hedgehog, is a key sales-enabled marketing tool and meets the high demand we see from a significant range of leisure and hospitality brands. Our support will also help create a number of key jobs as the Chorley-based tech firm expands its Sales, Product Development, Customer Support, and Marketing departments. Wireless Social has expansion plans for the US market where there is a significant opportunity for their hospitality-focused service and transformative Hedgehog solution.’

Julian Ross commented, “Over the last twelve months, Wireless Social has seen some significant growth in the number of new customers and the number of big brand operators we now work with. We love the hospitality sector and our number one focus is providing solutions to help operators delight their guests with a more personalised approach to marketing. The investment from Imbiba is going to support this goal by allowing us to develop even better solutions and to ensure we have the right people in place to support our growing customer base. I am thrilled to be working with the Imbiba team. Their experience and contacts within the sector are invaluable to our continued success.”