This article is the written companion to episode 410 of the Everything Coworking podcast. For my full account of the visit, listen to the full episode.
Not long ago I bought a day pass at a local coworking space run by a national brand (to remain nameless). I chose the space where my neighbor works. My neighbor had told me that parking was easy and that I could walk to Trader Joe’s for lunch (win/WIN).
I had not booked ahead, so I bought the pass on my phone when I got there. That process felt like it took 20 minutes. It was not a one- or two-click e-commerce experience. I had a call to make, and the phone booth turned out to be exactly the kind I like: an enclosed, fully soundproof room. I couldn’t get on the Wi-Fi inside, though, so I went back to the front desk for help.
The Community Manager asked for the email address on my account so he could look me up. My address has the words “everything coworking” in it, and he looked me up without comment.
He had no reason to know who I am, but a Community Manager who checks in a visitor with the word “coworking” in their email address has an easy reason to ask what that visitor does. I had also mentioned in passing that my neighbor works out of that space. He could have asked where I live, what I do, or who my neighbor is, and he asked none of those questions.
He was friendly and patient the whole time, but he showed no deeper interest in me. I am one of the visitors who wants the person at the front desk to be curious about them, though other visitors would rather be set up and left alone.
I was surprised the visit didn’t score a 10 out of 10 on experience, because I’d expect a national operator to have written procedures for day pass users, the easiest point-of-sale technology, AND Community Managers who want to engage and make someone feel welcome. It seems unlikely that even a national operator isn’t looking at a day pass as a top-of-funnel potential member.
A day pass is sometimes a person’s first experience with coworking, and it may be their first experience with your brand, your team, and your location. Some day pass users will never come back, but others may become long-term customers or good referral sources. Say an out-of-town guest who knows about coworking is staying with relatives who have never heard of coworking. The guest spends a day working from your space and tells the family about it. Now a local family knows what coworking is and has a recommendation for your space, and one of them may become a customer or mention you to a neighbor.
Your team can do eight things for a day pass visitor that will make them more likely to convert.
- Put up clear signage, and explain parking on your website.
- Prepare for walk-ins so that your team is ready to be their most hospitable selves and has an easy procedure for welcoming an unexpected guest.
- Make sure your tech stack supports on-demand bookings and that you can accommodate someone who wants a day pass 15 minutes ago.
- Do a quick search on the visitor and find some common ground. Be human. Get to know them. Act like you’re on a first date.
- Give them the option of touring now or after their urgent call if they have one. Reading the room is at the heart of hospitality.
- Try to introduce them to a member. Don’t force it on the introverts, but if you’re getting the “I like to be social” vibe, try to make a human-to-human connection. A positive interaction with a member can take the experience from a 7 to a 10.
- Make an offer and invite them back before they leave. Back to the first date analogy — ask them if they want to go out again!
- Record what you learned about them in your CRM. What’s better than making small talk based on a quick Google search when you first meet them? Recognizing them when they return! If you’ve ever stayed at a Four Seasons, they knock this out of the park. It is an incredible experience.
What does it take to convert a day pass visitor into a coworking space member?
Those are all simple to state in overview, but some are harder to implement in practice. Here’s how to master each one to boost the chance that day pass visitor turns into an engaged member.
Signage, parking and walk-ins
Put up clear wayfinding signage for your members, their guests, and your day pass users, and use your website to explain parking and anything else a visitor should know before arriving. If you can’t install permanent signage, a nicely designed sandwich board will do the trick.
One community manager I know works for a company that doesn’t staff all its locations, and those locations get a lot of do-it-yourself day pass users. Anyone who books one of them online in advance receives a short guide to how the day will work.
A day pass user doesn’t need a long conversation with your staff, but they do need to plan the visit ahead of time. The visitor should know where to park, how to connect to the wifi, where to work, and where to find the restrooms and coffee.
Let people buy a day pass without creating an account
When I arrived and asked for a day pass, the community manager told me I could buy it on my phone or my computer over the open wifi. That part was fine, but I had commuted to the space and was already running a little late for my call, so I needed the purchase to be quick.
It was not quick, and buying the pass felt like it took 20 minutes (it probably did not, but it FELT like that and as they say…perception is reality). First, I had to find the location on the company’s website, and with so many locations listed, finding the one I was standing in turned into a scavenger hunt. A QR code that opened the page for that location would have spared me the search. After that, I had to create an account and buy the pass.
I had expected buying the pass to work the way online shopping works for me now. Many of the retailers I buy from use an app called Shop at checkout. Shop recognizes me, fills in my shipping address and card, and tracks my orders on my phone, so I never have to create an account on those sites.
That is what consumers now expect when they buy online. That is also why I am a big fan of Flexspace.ai, which lets customers book a space without creating an account. OfficeRnD’s Growth Hub offers some of the same features.
If you do not buy day passes at other spaces, or at your own, you may not realize how hard your booking process is. When buying a day pass is hard, some people give up, whether they are trying from home or deciding to drop in while they are out. To you, requiring account creation might just seem like “how the process works,” but the extra effort stops some people from finishing a purchase.
I have heard from even operators in small markets whose meeting room revenue went up after they stopped requiring customers to create an account. Those stories are anecdotes, and Flexspace.ai has the data on booking without an account. (I am not an affiliate of Flexspace.ai — I just like good user experience because what’s good for the customer is good for the operator’s bank account).
Look the visitor up at check-in, and ask a couple of questions
The community manager activated my pass at the desk, and that was his first chance to look me up. The fact that I had just created an account would have told him that I had never been in, that I had never had a tour, and that I was a potential member.
I am chatty, and I usually start the conversation myself when I visit a coworking space, but your team should not count on a visitor doing that. At check-in, someone on your team should look the visitor up and ask a couple of questions. They should pay attention to whether the visitor wants to talk or wants to get to work. Job requirement of a CM: Be able to quickly read the room.
Offer the tour, now or after their call
Every day pass user should be offered a tour and treated as someone who might become a member, because they really might. I was a real candidate to join that space, since I live nearby and was not just in town visiting family. Even a visitor who is only in town to see family should get a short walk-through and an explanation of the etiquette, so they know where everything is.
Nobody showed me around, and from the desk I could see the kitchen but not the phone booth or the restrooms. Nobody told me whether coffee was included, and some hallways needed a key card. I ran coworking spaces for eight years and worked with operators every day, so I was comfortable asking about the kitchen, the coffee, the restrooms, the phone booth and the key card. Even then, I had to walk around and find the restroom myself. A visitor new to coworking could be intimidated by all that and have no idea whether the coffee was theirs to drink.
When a visitor arrives in a hurry, as I did, your team can postpone the tour. They can point out the phone booth, the restrooms, the coffee, and a place to leave things, and then offer a full tour once the call is over. I did not want a 20-minute conversation with the community manager when I arrived, but I would have loved to be shown where the phone booth was.
Nobody on your team should be intimidated by giving a tour. Showing someone the space and its amenities is a service to them, and to me, sales is service.
Introduce them to a member, and check on them during the day
A tour is also a chance to introduce a day pass user to a member. My neighbor was not in the space that day, so I didn’t know anyone. I was one of two women in the space, which I do not usually notice, but that day it made me feel a little out of place. The other woman was sitting near me, and I really wanted to meet her, but on my first visit I did not feel comfortable interrupting her. I would have loved an introduction from the community manager.
I live in the Bay Area, where a lot of people work in tech, and I do not. Whenever I visit a space, I wonder whether I belong there or whether everyone around me is building an app. If there are people in business, marketing, real estate, or hospitality in the space, I want to meet them. A community manager can tell a day pass user who else works there.
I never saw the community manager again after he helped me with the WIFI, and as far as I could tell, no one walked the floor or checked on people during the day. A walk through the space later in the day gives your team a second chance with a visitor who was too busy to talk at check-in. If the visitor is still busy, keep the conversation brief, and if they seem interested, tell them more about the space and the people who work there.
Make an offer and invite them back before they leave
Later that day, the community manager could have stopped by my desk. My billing address would have shown him that I am local, and he could have told me about the meeting rooms and how members book them. Day pass users are probably good candidates for your meeting rooms, too, whether they need to meet a client while they are in town or want to reserve a room so they can be sure they can make their calls.
The space was also running a promotion for anyone who committed to a full-time membership, and no one mentioned it to me. You want every customer to hear about an offer they might want, and a first-time visitor may not have looked at your memberships yet.
Even without a promotion, your team can stop by and ask how the day is going, whether the setup is working, whether there are any concerns, and whether the visitor is thinking about coming in more often. That visit is the time to explain your memberships.
For someone who works in the space regularly, a membership costs much less than buying day passes. Your day passes should be expensive, because the only people you want buying day pass after day pass are visitors who really are not local or really do not want to commit.
Before a day pass user leaves, someone should invite them back, and nobody should assume the visitor will walk past the front desk on the way out. At the space I visited, the way out did not pass the front desk. I think a visitor could buy a pass on their phone, work all day, and leave without talking to anyone. Some visitors would prefer that, but a visitor who leaves without passing the desk never hears an invitation to come back, and your team has fewer chances to connect them with members.
If you are designing a space, think about where the front desk is in relation to the exit. If your space is already built, your team will need to find day pass users before they go.
Record what you learned in your CRM
Whoever works the desk should add notes to the visitor’s record. The fact that my neighbor works there is exactly the kind of detail to record, since he is the reason I chose that space. I don’t have data on this, but I am certain a visitor with a friend in the space is much more likely to become a member.
A visitor like me is a strong candidate for a referral and for membership. Your team should tag that contact with something like “friend of a member” or “referral candidate,” using whatever tags fit how you market. They should also ask what the visitor does, where they live, who they know, and what problems they are trying to solve, and record the answers.
With those notes, you can market meeting room packages or day pass packages to that visitor as a potential member. The operator I visited may not do that, but as an independent operator, you probably want the person who drops in to work on a random Friday to spend more with you in the future.
Where to start
None of this is overly complicated, but a national brand that I would expect to have written procedures still missed several of these steps on my visit. So, you might be able to identify some opportunities for improvement, too.
Go through the checklist with your team, then buy a day pass at your own space on your phone the way a first-time visitor would, and count the steps. If one of them is creating an account, look for booking software that lets customers pay without one.
This article is the written companion to episode 410 of the Everything Coworking podcast. For my full account of the visit, listen to the full episode.
