MetTel Wi-Fi Analytics Brings "Cake Boss" Closer to Customers as Carlo's Bakery Eyes Global Expansion

The new MetTel Wi-Fi Analytics technology learns in real-time how consumers visit the bakery, where they browse, what they buy and don't buy, and helps determine what products they may want to try based on their established preferences. Further insights such as drive-bys, the frequency and length of visits can also provide valuable insights to help better cater to Carlo's Bakery discerning and loyal customer base. If this sounds more like a digital shopping experience, that's because it is – in-store.

Originally founded in 1910 in Hoboken, New Jersey, Carlo's Bakery has a long, proud tradition of serving its local customers for the past century, but owner Buddy Valastro saw a missing link over the past few years. Consumers were shopping more online, using mobile devices to browse before they buy and to acquire special offer notifications. He recognized it was time for Carlo's Bakery to build a media empire to reach mobile and social buyers. As a result, Carlo's Bakery is building a digital foundation to cater to a larger audience.

"We wanted to give our customers the best possible experience through a digital in-store approach," said Buddy Valastro, CEO of Carlo's Bakery. "It's no secret that more and more people are shopping online but many of our customers also like the look and feel and human touch of our bakeries. This technology can help uncover hidden opportunities to bring us closer to our customers while giving them the customized benefits of online shopping – the best of both worlds." 

A recent study by comScore and UPS in 2016 showed that the majority of retail purchases today are either made or influenced online.  A primary driver of this trend is the analytics capability in smart phone applications that have enabled consumers to bring the world to their fingertips. Digital analytics can reveal shopping patterns and tastes each time a consumer visits a web site, enabling retailers to optimize and personalize each individual's shopping experience. Physical stores, in contrast, have been measured by operations-driven methods such as footfall counters at doors and transactional data from point-of-sale systems for decades. These methods don't compare well with in-store behavioral analytical data that online stores use to fine-tune shopping experiences for each individual shopper.

"We can measure and enhance the customer experience in physical stores just as we do online," said Max Silber, Vice President for Mobility & IoT for MetTel. "Companies can now manage brick-and-mortar stores as if they were websites by calculating conversions, continuous monitoring and optimization, piloting new offerings, zooming into shopping paths and behavioral patterns, segmenting based on behavior, and so on. This will open new tactics and techniques for better check-out line management, adjusting staff allocations based on actual customer needs, tracking and managing assets like shopping carts, and triggering marketing messages based on customer location."

The MetTel Wi-Fi Analytics solution is able to analyze each visit to a store, provide real-time data from entire store spaces, and geolocation services and marketing for opt-in customers. Best of all, this is enabled without installing apps on smartphones. This results in stronger customer reach rates for the business through Wi-Fi versus applications.

Step by step, the solution works in the following manner:

• All Wi-Fi-enabled devices, typically consumer smart phones, continuously transmit signals to detect and connect to available networks several times per minute.
• The Wi-Fi mesh network at Carlo's Bakery receives the pings from these customers, which is anonymized and does not collect personal or private information.
• MetTel Wi-Fi Analytics assesses the signal strength and determines the location and movement patterns of each smart phone.
• Through continuous monitoring, the solution determines the full visit – which parts of the store the customer visits; their path through the store; how much time is spent at each stop; if they made a purchase and what they bought.
• This data forms the basis for the measurement of real-time customer behavior. This gives Carlo's Bakery a clearer view of how their stores are performing at any time and allows them to react to and change any aspect of the operation or experimentation with adjustments to traffic flow, product placement, merchandising, marketing or new concepts, all in the interest of continuous improvement.

MetTel has assisted thousands of companies from retail and other industries with digital transformation by providing advanced technology, skills and market-leading customer care. MetTel's market-leading customer service has been recognized with a Stevie Award for Customer Service Department of the Year — Telecommunications for the past three years, due largely to MetTel's proactive approach to predicting the probability of network strains and addressing them before they become major outages.

About MetTel
MetTel® is a leading global provider of integrated digital transformation and communications solutions for enterprise customers. By converging all communications over a proprietary network, MetTel enables enterprise companies to easily deploy and manage technology-driven voice, data, wireless and cloud solutions worldwide. MetTel's comprehensive portfolio of customer solutions boosts enterprise productivity, reduces costs and simplifies operations. Combining customized and managed communication solutions with a powerful platform of cloud-based software, the company's MetTel Portal™ enables customers to manage their inventory, usage, spend and repairs from one simple, user friendly interface. For more information visit www.mettel.net, follow us on Twitter (@OneMetTel) and on LinkedIn, or call us directly at 877.963.8663.   MetTel. Smart Communications Solutions.™

Media Contacts
Mike Azzi
Corporate Communications, MetTel
347.420.0957
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Michelle Van Jura
Intersect Communications, for MetTel
310.420.4062
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SOURCE MetTel

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