Coworking Space Transformation: Airbnb-Inspired Approach

Have you ever used Airbnb? I am sure that if you travel at least two times a year, the answer is “yes.” This vacation apartment rental enjoys incredible popularity. Over 150 million people currently use the service, though that number has not been updated since 2018.

What is the secret of phenomenal growth from cheap San Francisco apartment rent to a $3.4 billion corporation? The answer is a luxury available at your fingertips at an affordable price. In other words, travelers can easily explore Airbnb listings, book, and stay in homes and apartments of their dreams.

The great news is that you can easily adapt Airbnb's business model for your coworking space and enjoy similar success. Let’s see how it is possible in just three simple steps.

 

1. Feature Your Offers Prominently

Just like Airbnb offers luxury homes for travelers, you provide a better place to work for companies and individual entrepreneurs. Your workspaces are taking over traditional offices because they feature stylish well-designed interiors, comfortable work arrangements, amenities for business and fun gatherings, and so much more at a very reasonable and flexible price.

First of all, you need to beautifully present everything you offer, including tangible and intangible objects online, where all interested people can see them.

You probably have a nice website telling about the space, its plans, benefits, and community. However, it’s more about marketing than customer experience. I mean that if a person lands on your site, they can read about your coworking space but not get what they want immediately.

For instance, if a businessman needs your meeting room, they have to message or call the administrator to make a booking. Then come to the coworking space to pay for it. Only then, a person can host the meeting.

All of us understand that this is not an optimal customer journey. Sometimes a few extra steps can become a serious obstacle to conversion, which brings us to the second section of this blog.

 

2. Get Rid of Extra Steps Between Customers & Products

The simplest way to streamline the process of getting your services for members is to provide a self-service platform where they will seamlessly acquire what they need without asking the manager, additional calling, or messaging.

I am talking about members’ apps that should come in the package with your coworking space management platform. Those apps actually let you put the entire workspace with all its perks and services in members’ smartphones, which is really close to the Airbnb experience.

Here’s what members can do using their self-service web and mobile apps:

• Book desks & meeting rooms,
• Pay for their plans & all ad hoc stuff used,
• Communicate with the community,
• Request support,
• Apply for benefits,
• Purchase services,
• Discover & join events,
• Pre-register guests,
• Open doors, and so much more.

To successfully implement this step, you need to make sure that all your amenities and benefits look attractive on members’ apps, have proper call-to-actions, and clickable buttons to apply for every showcased item. On the other hand, there are different business banking alternatives that integrate with QuickBooks which will help you easily manage all purchases and other financial data because you have access to all transactions on an hourly basis.

For your reference, here’s how meeting rooms are presented on the City Space app.

You did a great job and now your members can take the maximum advantage of their memberships avoiding direct contacts. But what about potential customers that are not with your community yet? Airbnb is available to everyone and so can be your space!

Discover how hundreds of spaces worldwide unlock success and grow better with Spacebring

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3. Make Your Products Instantly Available to Both Members & Non-members Alike

I fully understand your desire to grow your business and revenue. For that, you need to put your products in front of new audiences. You can easily do it by making certain resources on your app available to the public.

Here’s the point where the magic happens and your coworking space irrevocably changes its style to the one of Airbnb bridging the gap between virtual and physical worlds both for current and prospective customers.

As soon as you make your assets public, any person who has downloaded your app from Google Play or App Store can discover your rooms, desks, events, services, and other publicly visible pages, without even having to sign in.

Just think about it. You can share a direct link to the meeting room's calendar on your website so visitors can see availability right away. Or you can post a direct event link on social media to let people learn more about the event and buy tickets. Or sell any product or service online straight through the Services page.

We want our customers to have no obstacles to book a room or buy service with us. Public visibility with Spacebring is a great chance to be totally flexible with that and earn more selling outside the space. We've always had the option for non-members to book, so this new feature brings a much better customer experience to those that like to book a la carte. Moreover, as a locked facility that doesn't have a full-time service manager, we create a culture of self-service for our customers. This is one more positive feature from Spacebring that allows our customers entry without having to wait or talk to anyone.

—Ashley Ross, Creative and Community Coordinator at Campfire CoWorks

Here are just a few major benefits you get by making your workspace available to exterior customers:

• New touchpoint with potential customers. Anyone can download your mobile app and use it to book a room or a desk in the same way they would with Airbnb or Booking. You have the opportunity to introduce your fantastic offerings to a larger audience and give them a taste of your hospitality before converting them into long-term customer.
• Revenue growth. You can generate fresh revenue by making specific desks, conference rooms, events, and services/products available to the general public. Anyone who downloads and logs into your app will be able to discover and purchase them using your associated payment gateway.
• New members stream. You indicate how open and flexible your workspace is by making your services and community events available to anybody without requiring them to sign a contract. As a result, many individuals who have already experienced your warm welcome are likely to choose you over competitors in the future and join your community.

Pease note that by making your coworking space so open, instantly available, and noob welcoming, you won’t turn it into a passage yard because you are in control of what’s public. You can make only one room publicly available or keep some events/services just for members to give current customers a priority and peace of mind.

Besides, if unregistered users go ahead with a purchase, they are required to sign in, which eliminates the risks and reveals opportunities.

 

Take Away

Hope this was helpful and now you know how to efficiently connect virtual and physical worlds not only for your existing members but prospective customers. As you see, the secret is in improving customers’ journey and taking obstacles off their way with the help of proper technology. To explore how our product can help you achieve this, schedule a demo call with our expert.