This article is written by Optix, a leading coworking space software. Check out this blog to learn more about the Optix and ezeep integration.
The Coworking member experience – what is it and why should we care? In a nutshell, it’s the experience members have when they interact with your coworking space online or in-person. Every aspect of your business impacts your coworking member experience, from your space design and services to your website and coworking software. Printing management is another area where you can provide value to your members and with the Optix integration with ezeep, streamline and improve your coworking member experience.
At Optix, we’ve seen first-hand what a powerful tool member experience can be for coworking businesses. That’s because it creates happy members and happy members bring several significant benefits. The first is member retention. Happy members don’t shop around. They’ve already found the best option. This reduces member churn, increases your marketing ROI and, most importantly, ensures you have a stable revenue stream.
Member acquisition is another key benefit. Happy members are more likely to recommend your space – in-person and online. This is called word-of-mouth or referral marketing and is a very successful, cost-effective way to grow membership. Studies have shown that 84% of people most trust purchase referrals from friends, followed closely by consumer opinions online.
Online reviews have another advantage. Search engines use these testimonials to help gauge how high to rank businesses in search results. This means that the more five-star reviews you get, the more likely you are to be seen by potential customers.
Your staff also benefits from offering an exceptional member experience. This is because improving member experience often involves fixing issues in your space. A great by-product of this is that it also boosts your operational efficiency, making your team’s lives easier.
Refining Your Coworking Member Experience
You don’t have to overhaul your whole service strategy to boost your member experience. You just need to understand the areas your members care about most and focus on amplifying those.
To help you identify these key member experience drivers, try asking yourself the following questions:
What motivated my current members to look for a coworking space? The majority of your core membership could, for example, be remote workers in need of community.
Why did they choose my space over the competition? Perhaps they picked you because of the friendly members they met at your open house.
Why did they stay? Once they joined, these remote workers may have loved your lively community and the fun social events you host.
By answering these questions, you’ll have a clearer understanding of your unique value proposition. Then it’s simply a matter of finding ways to enhance it. Using our example, you could perhaps assemble a member welcome committee to greet newcomers or add more social events to the calendar.
The Power of Member Feedback
Who could tell you more about your member experience than members themselves? They know what makes your space great and what doesn’t. Take this opportunity to tap into that knowledge by asking your members for feedback. Just make sure you’re ready to act on the feedback you get. If you don’t, members may feel you wasted their time.
A good tip for getting started is to be specific with your questions. This will help ensure you get strong feedback you can action. Here are some examples you could use:
What are we doing well? Getting members to share what they enjoy about your coworking space will help you validate or reassess the value proposition you just defined. It will also help you to ensure you are continuing to focus and invest in what is working!
What frustrations, if any, do you have about working out of this coworking space? Giving members the chance to vent frustrations serves a double purpose. Not only will it clarify the pain points you need to address, it will also help them feel heard.
Are there services you wish we offered? Asking this question is a great way to gather inventive ideas you can use to boost your value proposition even further.
Don’t forget to thank members for taking the time to share feedback. After all, they’re helping you improve your service strategy. A small gesture, such as a free lunch or coffee, can work as an incentive too!
Categorize, Prioritize & Keep Improving
As the feedback rolls in, you may feel overwhelmed by the input. Sorting and prioritizing responses will help. We recommend categorizing first by the area for improvement (space design, technology, etc.) and then by the effort involved. This will help you identify low-hanging fruit that you can address immediately and activities that will require longer-term investment. From there, all you have to do is create your member experience action plan and get to work.
The most important thing to remember though is that improving your member experience isn’t a one-time exercise. It’s a continuous improvement process you need to integrate into your overall service strategy. This is done by creating a feedback loop with activities like quarterly member surveys. The benefits of doing so are great. You’ll have happier members, a better run space, and a stable revenue stream that will only grow over time.