With the power of choice always at your fingertips, shopping around for a better fit is second nature for most people. According to the Global Coworking Survey, your members are no different. Only 54% of members plan to stay with their current coworking space – a figure that’s dropped 11% since last year. This means that to ensure member retention, it’s no longer enough to provide a clean, efficiently-run coworking space. You need to deliver a killer experience that satisfies your members’ unique requirements to keep them loyal to your brand. But where do you begin?
The workspaces available in your coworking venue are at the heart of your member’s experience and optimizing those spaces is much easier when you understand how members use them. Leveraging data from your coworking management software takes the guesswork out of decision-making. You can drill down into usage insights for each space, such as the number and length of bookings and percentage of time booked, to identify where you can improve.
As an example, you may have a conference room that seats 20 people. Looking at your analytics, you find that on average, it is utilized only 30% of the time. Comparatively, your smaller meeting rooms are utilized 90% of the time and are in high demand. This insight could lead to you installing a sliding door that splits your conference room into two smaller meeting rooms, repurposing an underutilized space. In this way, you satisfy your members’ unspoken need for additional smaller rooms while simultaneously optimizing the usage of your workspaces.
Creating the perfect member experience and developing genuine relationships with your members comes down to paying attention to the details. Taking care of all of these details is, however, a challenge – you can’t be everywhere at once and often your members won’t tell you when there’s a problem. They may not be troubled enough to inform you or they don’t want to make a fuss.
While one small issue may not annoy them, the second issue could push them over the edge – causing frustration and impacting their impression of your coworking space. Take for example a wobbly chair. On its own this is a minor irritation. But pair that wobbly chair with slow wifi, and the problems compound into one unsatisfied member.
Optix offers an in-app reporting function which allows members to report issues easily without needing to approach a venue manager. With a few taps, they can instantly alert you to a problem, pinpoint its location and can even add a photo. As a result, you understand what’s needed to improve their coworking experience and resolve their issue without any hassle.
Nothing can tell you more about what your members are enjoying than your members themselves. Engaging them through a community feed on your coworking venue’s mobile app not only gives you the opportunity to update them on the latest services and events, but also gauge their positive and negative sentiments towards your activities.
For instance, you may be holding a networking night with a prominent speaker on social media marketing. By sending out an RSVP via your community feed, you’ll be able to see who’s signing up, as well as the comments your members are making on the post. In the process, you’ll learn how interested your members actually are in networking opportunity like these, alongside whether the event’s timing is right for them.
More than anything else people like to feel special. That’s why personalizing your coworking services to specific members is guaranteed to improve the value they see in your space. Through custom properties for members, you can collect invaluable information about your members’ unique preferences, such as their favorite snack, preferred workspace and accessibility requirements, to ensure you cater exactly to their needs.
Take our previous event example. Using custom properties, you could ask each member what three skills they’re currently looking to learn. From this, you can identify the most popular subjects people are interested in, build events around them, and even send out custom, early invitations to those members most likely to attend. Consequently, you add extra value for your members, tailoring your services to create the ideal coworking experiences for them.
With the ability for your members to make a move without a moment’s notice, taking a back seat on member loyalty is no longer an option. If you want to attract and retain the long-term members that help your coworking business thrive, you need to thoroughly understand what they need, what they like and what they’re interested in. Doing so will help you create the perfect member experience and genuine relationships that ensure your members love your venue so much they never want to leave.
