How to Use Member Benefits to Drive Value in Your Coworking Space

According to the Global Coworking Spaces Market 2021-2025 report, the coworking industry is on pace to grow over $13 billion in the next 5 years.

In this increasingly competitive market, just selling space isn’t enough. Whether you’re starting a new coworking space or trying to expand your business, you’ll need to stand out from the crowd in order to be successful.

One way to differentiate yourself from the competition is by offering member perks, or benefits, to your community. When implemented successfully, they can help attract and retain members over time.

In this quick guide, we’ll walk you through what member perks are and how you can use them to build long-term loyalty for your coworking brand.

What are member benefits?

Member perks are benefits offered to your members that are more than the usual coworking offerings. They are unexpected and delightful offerings that are above and beyond what one might expect in a coworking space.

Examples of member perks include:

• Discounts and deals at local businesses
• Allowing dogs in the office
• Hosting keynote speakers exclusively for members

The purpose of these perks is to provide value to your community. Therefore, it’s important to understand who your ideal customer is and what services they would perceive as valuable.

Member perks are most effective when it’s something your members truly want and need.

Advantage of offering member benefits in your coworking space

Perks help your members feel like they are getting more than they bargained for. They increase the perceived value of your offering and can improve your member retention rate.

They also serve as a point of differentiation to help set your space apart from others on the market. Other advantages we see are:

• Improved community engagement: hosting events or social hours can help create a more engaged community
• New opportunities to co-market with other businesses: setting up a partnership with another business can be a great way to market your space locally
• Elevated space: having benefits that set your space apart is a way to elevate the entire experience of your space.  

Member perks are anything but standard. However, it’s becoming common practice to offer member benefits to your community to stand out from the crowd.

In doing so, you’ll be investing in the health and overall well being of your entire community.

How to set up member perks in your coworking space

Setting up perks for your coworking space members comes down to finding out what it is your members truly want and need and acting upon it.

Here are some tips to getting started with creating member perks:

• Gather member feedback: if you already have members in your space, then the best place to start is by talking to them and surveying what it is they may want in the space
• Define your ideal customer profile and their interests: don’t have any members yet? Do some market research to find out who your ideal member is and what kinds of things they value
• Identify businesses that your members are already visiting: if you notice everyone coming in with the same coffee cup, that could be a sign to reach out to that cafe about creating a partnership or a discount you can offer
• See what other spaces in your area are offering: get some ideas on what you can provide by seeing what other spaces in your area are providing their members with and identifying any gaps in the market
• Think about what makes your space special: every space is unique. Think about what is unique to you and your community and create perks around that

Ideally, you’ll be able to come up with benefits that your members will enjoy and receive value from as well.

Offering member perks with Optix

If you’re looking for a simple way to showcase discounts, deals, and promos in your space, then you may want to consider the Perks app.

​​The Perks app is a fully customizable app that allows you to create and manage offers and promote them to your users directly in the Optix app.

With this feature, you can easily manage and showcase all of the promos and benefits you’re offering to your community, driving more value for the members in your space.

As an Optix user, you can:

• Manage all perks in a single view including active, inactive, and hidden perks
• Create perks with multiple unique codes or a single use code or link
• Measure how often perks are being “revealed” by users
• Download perk usage reports

Learn more about Perks in Optix with this helpful FAQ.

8 coworking member benefits to differentiate your coworking space

While discounts and deals are the most common type of member benefit in coworking spaces, they don’t need to be limited to helping people save money.

Your members will appreciate social and educational benefits too. To help get the ideas flowing, here are some coworking member perks you can offer:

1. Let the dogs in

Similarly to child care, letting members bring their dogs into your space can help them feel at home and eliminate the guilt of leaving their furry friend alone.

The bonus is you’ll get to spend time with them yourself!

2. Be a teacher

There’s no better way to provide value to members than by helping them expand their skill set.

Find out what they care about and where their skill gaps are, and develop resources like blogs and newsletters that address their needs. This same thought process can be applied to deciding what kinds of events and speakers to host.

3. Offer wellness perks

All work and no rest can be the recipe for burnout. Help members strike a healthy work/life balance by hosting a yoga class or offering on location chair massages.

You can also have a nutritionist come in and lead a workshop on healthy eating and the link between eating right and maximizing your brainpower.

4. Develop a preferred services network

Many of your members will be running businesses out of your space. Why not help them attract new customers?

You can create a preferred services network that members can tap into for any support they need. Not ready to launch a network? Have members share their skills and services via an online community portal.

5. Provide child care

This is another wonderful way to help members achieve work/life balance. External childcare can add commute time and significant costs for working parents.

By providing childcare services on-site, members can drop their kids off, get straight to business and pause to play between tasks.

Check out this guide breaking down the coworking and childcare model to better understand the pros and cons of providing childcare in your space.

6. Negotiate discounts

People love to save money. Reach out to local small businesses and partner with them to offer member discounts on coffee, fitness classes, food, and fun.

They get more business, you increase the value of a coworking membership at your space and your members pay less. It’s a win/win/win for everyone involved.

7. Host community events 

Bringing people together to learn and socialize can be a great way to add value. These coworking events could be anything from member-led Lunch & Learns where people share their skills with their community to a networking night over wine and cheese.

Events can also serve as an effective marketing tool to introduce potential members to your space.

8. Offer 24-hour access 

Not everyone’s a morning person. Some people work best late at night.

These days access control technology enable you to provide access 24/7 to your space, allowing you to safely open the door to night owls at their most productive time.

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All these coworking member perks (and there are plenty more!) can help your coworking space attract new members, build loyalty and stay ahead of the competition.

But, at the end of the day, it’s important you remember your biggest perk of all – your community. If you truly want to thrive, you need to intentionally foster a coworking community that steps up and supports each other.

When you do that, your coworking space will thrive.