Dr. Gleb Tsipursky – The Office Whisperer
Nirit Cohen – WorkFutures
Angela Howard – Culture Expert
Drew Jones – Design & Innovation
Jonathan Price – CRE & Flex Expert
- Anyone can learn how to run a coworking or virtual office business, but you can’t teach someone to care.
- It’s the care and attention that keep people coming back, leading to long-term members and clients.
- Two successful operators tell us what makes great service and why it makes a valuable difference in their centers.
This article was written by Mike Sullivan, Chief Marketing Officer for Alliance Virtual Offices. Alliance Virtual Offices is a leading provider of virtual office solutions that help innovative businesses scale faster.
We all know great service is important — but why? What does great service look or feel like?
How does it translate to more virtual office clients and revenue?
Community, hospitality, and service are prized assets of our industry. But this isn’t new — it has been this way for decades.
Traditional business centers, executive suites, and the original “off-site tenant program” (as virtual offices were once known) have always focused on delivering concierge-style service. It’s an essential building block for creating an environment that entrepreneurs want to be in.
Any center can provide a virtual office address or a space with WiFi.
It’s the care, support, and genuine human connections that keep people coming back, leading to long-term members and clients.
And as competition in our industry grows, more and more operators are emphasizing hospitality-style service to finetune their offering and stand out.
One of them is Philip Cohen, Senior Vice President Operations at Workuity, a Phoenix coworking brand with two locations and a well-established virtual office service.
When recruiting client-facing staff, he looks for what he calls a “heart of hospitality.”
“I always look for people from the hotel industry. I know this industry — I spent 25+ years in the hotel business. So, I look for people with a ‘heart of hospitality.’”
“I can teach someone this business, but I can’t teach them to care. You either have it or you don’t,” Cohen said.
That’s the difference between good and truly memorable service.
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But why does it matter?
A happy client is likely to tell others about their experiences, leading to (free) word of mouth referrals and new leads. It also generates positive online reviews, providing valuable social proof for your brand.
A positive experience can help repair a poor one, too. If your service is usually excellent, 78% of consumers will do business with you again even after a mistake.
At Alliance Virtual Offices, we work with 1,000+ operators worldwide. Our partners regularly talk to us about the value of delivering outstanding service and the efforts they are making to ensure gold standard at their centers.
Cohen said, “There’s a lot of competition, especially here in Phoenix where our market is growing quickly. Like hotels, a lot of other people do what we do. We’re not the biggest, but we can differentiate by giving a personalized service. It’s extremely important. It means we really get to know and understand each client and their needs.”
Why personalization matters
Personalization is the foundation for great service, and it’s often the little details that make the biggest difference.
This is especially true for virtual offices. Virtual clients spend less time in the center compared with coworking members, which makes it more challenging for community managers to build rapport with virtual clients.
Challenging, but far from impossible.
“Our virtual office clients are very important to us. There’s no cap on the number of virtual clients our center can have, but whether it’s 1 or 1,000, communication is key,” Cohen said. “Mail is an important part of the service so when clients receive mail, we let them know. We use Delivered to notify clients, we take a photo of their mail and send it to them, and we keep a log to ensure nothing goes missing.”
Of course, sometimes, mistakes happen. In this case, response time is crucial and a key indicator of how well a center’s service holds up to its promise. At Workuity the team is quick to jump on issues and work with the client to resolve them.
For example, occasionally, a virtual office client’s mail is sent to the wrong floor. Even though this is out of Workuity’s control, they work to resolve it as quickly as possible — visiting each floor in turn or even crossing the street to track down the package if it has been delivered to another building by mistake.
Proactive and responsive
Another coworking and virtual office brand that prioritizes great service is IncuHub, with two locations in Virginia and a strong emphasis on client service.
For Operations Manager Gene Granger, good communication is essential in delivering memorable service and building rapport with clients. This is especially true for virtual clients.
“We’re proactive in our outreach and we always aim to be very responsive. If a client has a question, we respond as soon as possible. We may never meet all of our virtual clients in person, but they know they’re always going to get a fast response, and that’s important,” said Granger.
IncuHub has the advantage of being founded by a small business owner, which means they can directly relate to their clients’ needs and challenges.
“We know what it’s like to run a small business. We understand the challenges and we can relate,” Granger said. “We know what they need to be successful, and we designed our center and our service with this in mind.”
Friendly, personable service helps instill trust and confidence. Even if things go wrong, a caring attitude backed by a strong relationship can quickly override negative experiences.
Even if things go wrong, a caring attitude backed by a strong relationship can quickly override negative experiences.
This means clients are more likely to stay for the long-term, providing those all-important referrals and even becoming a brand advocate along the way, helping to strengthen your center’s reputation and drive revenue for future growth.
If your center prioritizes great service for virtual office clients, we want to hear from you. Find out about partnership opportunities with Alliance Virtual Offices and learn how we can help grow your workspace drive revenue, here.
