Should Coffee Shops Filter Their Patrons’ Wifi?
How establishments can protect their brand and block harmful internet content from being accessed through guest WiFi
Coffee shops, kid-friendly restaurants and shopping malls attract lots of young families. With hundreds of kids and teenagers all connecting to the establishment’s guest wifi, as management you need to make sure that they experience a safe environment … or risk see your business reputation deteriorate.
The cost of waiting to filter guest Wifi
It takes a long time for your business to build up a family-friendly reputation, but all that investment can be quickly lost without proper training, policies and measures in place.
For years Starbucks and McDonald’s were criticized heavily for failing to block Internet porn and potentially putting youngsters at risk. It was only in 2016 that the companies together announced they were going to apply content filtering technology to block such content, trailing behind other high-street food brands, such as Chick-Fil-A. Failing to act fast on the issue resulted in a lot of negative press that eroded confidence in the brand.
All of this could lead to:
- Negative reviews on social media and TripAdvisor
- Bad press as media and bloggers catch wind of these stories
- Disparaging remarks with family and friends leading to loss of business from word of mouth
- A lowered rate of returning visitors
Public Relations firms can only do so much once the word gets out that your company allows children to access to questionable online content.
Why you should filter your Guest WiFi
Even if your brand isn’t as high profile as these examples, you can’t afford to coast by without doing due diligence.
Offering filtered secure wifi also makes sense commercially. A strong reputation as a family-friendly establishment translates into a trustworthy brand, which is crucial if your business attracts and caters for families with minors every day.
Parents take out their families so they can relax, so they don’t want to worry that their kids will accidentally stumble on online pornography or hyper violent content. Even one child porn case can land your brand on the social media feeds and permanently damage your brand, not to mention the legal implications.
Protect your brand reputation with Cloud DNS
Using cloud DNS to filter your guest wifi basically eliminates these risks by:
- Blocking adult material and child pornography
- Granular filtering by category and domain lists
- Enforcing Safe Search for Google, YouTube and other search engines
- Save on bandwidth costs by restricting streaming, p2p and torrent traffic.
Your reputation is core to your brand, which is in turn is your most important asset.
With Rawstream CloudDNS, you are constantly reinforcing the connection with your brand. Whenever a customer tries to visit a blocked page, they will see your logo, name and also a friendly message about why that domain is blocked, which all contribute to a positive image.
Rawstream Cloud DNS delivers on all the above key features. Sign up for a free 15 day trial of Rawstream.
