6 Digital Wayfinding Maintenance Tips Every Business Should Know

As digital wayfinding signage systems continue to become one of the more prominent branding tools for a vast variety of industries, maintaining appropriate upkeep of these navigational displays is imperative to preserving exceptional customer service. Whether it’s ensuring your wayfinding software is up to date, or keeping an eye out for any visual or usage issues, one poor user experience with your company’s digital wayfinding system can quickly turn into dozens of dissatisfied customers.

The trouble with most digital wayfinding providers is that once they’ve installed and implemented their systems into your business, it can be difficult to maintain coordination with them in regards to what to do when any technical difficulties arise. However, knowing a few digital wayfinding maintenance pointers can at the most ensure optimal wayfinding software performance, and at the least help you spot performance issues before they evolve into dysfunctional drawbacks.

To better monitor and manage your company’s current digital wayfinding signage system, here are six essential wayfinding maintenance tips to keep your signage displays operating at peak performance.

Software Upgrade

One of the easiest ways to dissuade customers from utilizing your digital wayfinding services is by failing to upgrade your wayfinding systems software. Scheduling a periodic software performance assessment will ensure that your digital wayfinding features are functioning at their best, in regards to usability, loading times, compatibility, and more.

While there’s no concrete timetable for upgrading your digital wayfinding software, a general rule of thumb for conducting a performance evaluation should be annually, if not twice a year. Always trust a reputable wayfinding provider to test out your current system’s software functionality.

Connectivity Tests

It’s basically inevitable that various technological issues with your digital wayfinding system shall arise throughout the year. But more often than not, the reason your digital wayfinding display isn’t performing up to par is due to simple connectivity issues that can generally be resolved with ease.

Common bandwidth issues associated with digital wayfinding systems can include:

●        Interrupted network connection from the signage display to the wireless router 

●        Failure to automatically update content

●        Inability to synchronize at-work server with digital signage media player

●        Outdated equipment, software, or technology

●        Data memory overload or harddrive failure

While all of these issues can prove to be quite the technological annoyance at the moment, it’s fairly common that a simple maintenance check can address any of these problems.

When dealing with any of these technical difficulties, be sure to try the following before contacting a professional maintenance provider:

●        Unplug or shut off power to your devices, wait at least 10 seconds, then reboot the wayfinding signage display 

●        Be sure to check that all cables and connections to your wayfinding system and wireless router are secure and plugged in 

●        Try using another screen to connect the media player to determine whether the software or display is the technology at fault

Preventive Security Measures

Possibly the most overlooked element to proper wayfinding maintenance is ensuring your digital signage or interactive kiosk system is completely up-to-date in terms of virtual security. While the risk of a hacker breaking into your interactive wayfinding display is minimal, it’s always better to employ a ‘better safe than sorry’ approach, especially if your wayfinding system contains personal or private information of your company, employees, and customers.

Be sure to change the passwords to your wayfinding software at least once every couple of months, and check to see whether your antivirus software has been recently updated. Your digital wayfinding service provider should be able to offer you a full system assessment to evaluate any software errors or possible viruses.

Analytic Reports

Aside from software and security updates, another essential wayfinding maintenance task is evaluating specific analytic reports to see what software tools and features are being most utilized by customers.

Everything from most-searched terms to least-used maps to user demographics can be taken into account in order to appropriately assess which aspects of your digital wayfinding system are successful and which could use some improvement.

Having these insightful analytics at your disposal can help you make more informed business and marketing decisions that will enhance your customers’ user experience with your wayfinding system.

Measurable Metrics

Finally, perhaps the most advantageous aspect of digital wayfinding maintenance are all the measurable metrics available at your disposal. From keeping up with customer trends to assessing consumer engagement levels, having the ability to track a wide range of insightful metrics helps business owners become more aware of what navigational tools or wayfinding content is more popular or useful to customers. Some examples of these resourceful metrics include:

Key Performance Indicators: Email captures, sales figures, advertising revenue, social media follows; all of these metrics are examples of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) that accumulate valuable consumer information that will help you better analyze what dynamics of your digital wayfinding strategies are most effective.

Session Length: Curious to know how long users are accessing your kiosk or wayfinding stations? With session length and count metrics, you’ll be able to better understand whether or not users are fully comprehending or utilizing your wayfinding solutions, providing you with keen insight as to whether any functional changes are necessary for improving user experience.

ROI Insight: Advanced metrics are ideal for giving you more insight as to calculating your return of investment (ROI) on your digital wayfinding technologies. Metrics such as dwell time, guest comments, or customer satisfaction scores provide more clarity as to what’s working for your wayfinding strategies and what’s not. 

Hire a Wayfinding Maintenance Professional

At the end of the day, you probably have so much on your plate that taking the appropriate time to conduct a performance audit or software upgrade for your digital wayfinding system can be easier said than done.

At Oppna Digital, we provide our customers with exceptional wayfinding maintenance and support services, to make sure your wayfinding and digital signage displays are performing at their best.

Contact us today to learn more about wayfinding maintenance support services, or call us at 651.237.5677 to speak directly with our digital wayfinding experts.