Purple, the intelligent spaces company, has partnered with WiFi marketing agency, Smartspace, to provide sophisticated guest WiFi and analytics to venues across Ecuador, with plans to roll out further across Colombia, Panama, Peru and Chile in the coming months.
The partnership solution has been adopted by Smartspace customer, Mall del Sol, one of the largest malls in South America located in Guayaquil, Ecuador. 33 Ruckus access points have been installed at the mall, which boasts more than 270 stores, a food court and cinema.
In addition to the robust security features and marketing tools offered by Purple, Mall del Sol was specifically interested in the location based services that the solution offers, which delivers a more sophisticated visitor interaction than alternative providers. The customer will therefore be utilizing Purple location based services and Spot Ruckus, for onsite tracking and zone analytics throughout the venue.
Shantal Paredes, Commercial and Marketing Manager of Mall del Sol, comments: “In order to improve the experience of our visitors we decided to invest in the Purple platform served by SmartSpace, as it allows us to identify the movement of visitors in the mall and validate the impact of our events in terms of traffic through the use of heat maps.”
Reports are easily generated through the dedicated Purple Portal which gives valuable metrics such as repeat versus new visitors, time spent at the mall and in which areas, times of visits and many more. The venue can then choose how it wants to target new or repeat visitors by making them aware of new stores, restaurants or other amenities and offering rewards in real time.
Shantal adds: “We are also looking to distribute mini surveys on specific topics because we now have the customer data that used to be difficult to collect. The data that is generated allows us to perform much more focused actions to our customers and we hope that other departments such as Operations can use the information to become more efficient. We are very satisfied with the results we have from the platform so far and we look forward to a long-term business relationship.”
It is the intention of Smartspace to migrate all of its existing business from SOCIFI to Purple in the coming year, in addition to targeting new customers, including an additional six malls expected to go live with the solution in the coming months.
Gavin Wheeldon, CEO and founder of Purple said: “The deployment of our solution at Mall del Sol is a great example of the type of commercial venue that can really benefit from the scalable, secure solution that we deliver. Our software delivers measurable benefits such as location based services and engagement through SMS and email marketing, and essentially provides Mall del Sol with a much better understanding of footfall and trends throughout the destination. We look forward to supporting Smartspace with many more customer deployments in the coming months.”
Commenting on the partnership, Allan Gasken, Director of Smartspace said: “We completely understand how Purple’s tools can positively impact our customers. We were very happy to sign a partnership agreement as we like what they offer, we value the sales and technical knowledge and support in place and so do our customers. There is a lot of noise around WiFi analytics in Ecuador at the moment and the Purple solution allows us to remain ahead of the curve in terms of the service, the reports and the support we can provide to our customers.”
Smartspace has ambitious growth plans, aiming to have 8,000 WiFi access points operating in the next 5 years, tapping into a number of vertical markets and high-profile companies that have branches across South America. The company’s main goal is to become the number one provider for marketing in Ecuador. With the partnership now established between the two businesses, Smartspace is currently going through Purple’s certification process, which will further cement the relationship.
Gasken adds: “When we made contact with Purple at the end of last year the team was very responsive and were a great help when explaining the portal’s functions and the benefits of becoming a partner. Those customers that have already transitioned are very happy with the Purple solution to date, the detailed reporting it delivers and the stability of the platform.”