How MY WORKSPACE Achieved 100% Self-Service Meeting Room Booking

 

Shared Office in the Heart of Gangnam

Founded in 2015 in Seoul, MY WORKSPACE is a fast-growing commercial real estate company in South Korea, that provides offices and desks for companies of all sizes. MY WORKSPACE now runs 4 locations in Gangnam, South Korea's famous financial district.

The founder of MY WORKSPACE Ronald Yang is a local coworking opinion leader and visionary. Ron believes that shared workspace market share will grow to at least 50% of the entire office market in the next decade.

"Operational efficiency and member experience are crucial to a successful shared office business. I think the future is smart buildings that are unmanned, operated through a comprehensive building management system. An important component of this future is a customer-facing platform to deliver services to tenants."

Ronald Yang here and below unless otherwise noted

 

The Pitfalls of Google Calendar at a Coworking Space

Let's take a step back to see how MY WORKSPACE did things before adopting andcards.

"Occasional booking conflicts, missing booking schedule, lack of manpower and many other issues persecuted us every now and again Using Google Calendar for our growing coworking space business was increasingly becoming a nightmare."

Google Calendar is not designed for shared office business. It doesn't allow to charge for meeting room usage, set up booking limits, or prevent members from abusing the booking calendar. If meeting rooms are free to use, members occupy them for the entire day. MY WORKSPACE needed a system to monetize meeting space and provide limited free access to tenants.

At first, MY WORKSPACE team resorted to a stamp card or coupon system, similar to what one might find at a coffee shop. Managers had to make and distribute coupons. Members could spend them at the front desk.

"This way we tried to take meeting room booking under control, to make it economically fair. But this solution was far from perfect."

• David needed to book a meeting room urgently, but he forgot where the coupons are. David had to go to the reception desk to create a booking, but the reception manager wasn't there.
• Ally wanted to use the free coupon, but Mr. Kim accidentally took all coupons with him on a business trip.
• Jimin accidentally deleted somebody else's booking on Google Calendar, creating multiple booking conflicts along the way.

In addition to the laborious coupon distribution, reception managers had to run a separate Google Sheet to track the usage. Ron estimated that the growing number of support requests took a lot of time and caused additional expenses. For the team of 10, that's about 100 hours or $1,000 per month.

"It is simply unprofessional to rely on Google Calendar at a shared workspace business."

 

Booking Automation by andcards

Ron knew that adopting a fully automated meeting room booking system could solve the pain.

"We experienced all kinds of problems for a long time until we found a solution. They caused real disasters in our space. Now, andcards became a backbone of our fully automated self-service booking system."

Today the process of booking a meeting room for MY WORKSPACE members is as simple as entering the MY WORKSPACE app on their smartphone, choosing the date and time, and paying with credits. About 1,000 members use the app to make over 100 bookings per day.

Credits are automatically distributed to companies and individuals through membership plans. All company members have equal access to company credits. The credit spending is fully transparent, so company managers can use the app to see who spent the credits.

Unlike Google Calendar, andcards allows to monetize meeting room space. If members don't have enough credits, they can use a credit card through a connected payment gateway.

"Implementing meeting room booking software is about efficiency both for owners and customers. They just can be anywhere in the whole world, open the app, and book a meeting room."

Reception managers are now free from booking-related requests. People appreciate efficiency and speed and love self-booking through the app without having to wait for the administrator's help. It's ultimately convenient to just open the app, see what's available, and book.

"If I were to estimate it roughly, I think we save at least *$1,000 per month. Members and non-members just open the app and book, without having to talk to any manager. It's a great investment for us."*

 

Key Achievements

• 100% self-service meeting room booking saves MY WORKSPACE managers multiple hours per day. This results in cost-savings up at least $1,000 per month.
• Automated free hour allocation by giving monthly room booking credits together with recurring membership plans. No more manual free hour tracking and deduction.
• Improved member experience. Members can make reservations from anywhere using slick mobile apps for iOS and Android. This means no wait times, no barriers, and 24/7 availability.
• Prevented overbooking, booking conflicts, overlaps, and accidental booking deletions. andcards is designed for coworking spaces, so it doesn't allow to create two overlapping bookings by design.
• Helped provide equal and even access to meeting space for all members. Booking rooms is not a competition of who gets to the front desk first. All members get access to meeting rooms from the palm of their hand.