Dr. Gleb Tsipursky – The Office Whisperer
Nirit Cohen – WorkFutures
Angela Howard – Culture Expert
Drew Jones – Design & Innovation
Jonathan Price – CRE & Flex Expert
- Customer service ratings for products and services are a high priority for consumers.
- Coworking spaces and operators are almost exclusively rated in a general way, and potential users have to seek out phrases like “unaccommodating operator” to discover a lousy customer service review.
- Coworking operators must prioritize providing high-quality customer service to attract discerning members.
According to a 2022 Insider Intelligence report, nearly half of global consumers are willing to change their products if alternatives include better customer service.
Customers simply want good service, and it trumps other factors like whether a company’s values align with their own values; value alignment only sways roughly 27% of consumers.
Good service may include money-back guarantees, having qualified experts on hand to answer technical questions, and selling an experience to customers.
These factors are part of what build brand trust, and brand trust is what makes a loyal customer base, which is the key to succeeding as a business. But do coworking spaces live up to this standard of service — and how can potential members know?
How is customer service rated in the coworking industry?
Given that customer service is integral to customer retention and acquisition for businesses and that the coworking industry is highly centered around customer service, how is customer service rated in the coworking industry?
Most reviews for coworking operators are general reviews — somewhat like those one would find on Google for a business, which may or may not include customer service concerns but may also include events that don’t necessarily reflect businesses, such as random crimes occurring in them.
But because the coworking industry is so centered around customer service — making sure that clients and the employees working in their locations are satisfied, safe, and comfortable — coworking center reviews, when they exist, do tend to reflect opinions about customer service matters.
Many coworking spaces have a Yelp page that customers can review. On these pages, coworking spaces are rated in ways comparable to restaurants and hotels — by stars and according to how customers felt about the services offered.
Customer service reviews are important for coworking spaces
Operators with members working from their coworking spaces will almost inevitably receive reviews online. Those that lack reviews, however, could be missing out on a marketing goldmine; not to mention that a lack of reviews indicates a lack of customers.
Of the smartphone users who search online for a service or business, three-fourths will visit a local small business within a day of the search. With 97% of customers searching online, having reviews is beneficial because it increases your search visibility.
And if that search visibility is full of positive customer service reviews, the odds of being the recipient of that three-fourths of customers exponentially increases.
How can coworking spaces boost customer reviews?
Having a positive brand reputation is central to succeeding as a coworking operator — especially when it comes to having good IT and customer service. Without these, coworking operators have struggled to maintain stable revenues.
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Lacking customer reviews online decreases your search visibility and effectively lowers your visibility, period.
The implementation of other search-engine optimization tricks, such as keyword research to bolster website copy, cannot counterbalance a lack of apparent brand trust from a loyal customer base. It may be worth sending members surveys that include open-ended questions, or directly asking for reviews on services as a way to elicit participation and honest feedback on how you can improve.
Another effective technique is to consider including a “customer reviews” section on the location’s website, or a link to a Yelp page full of customer reviews. Transparency is the first step to top-tier customer service.
