I had a comment today from a new customer here for one single day: “I’ve been to coworking offices around the country and all of them just say ‘here’s our Venmo!’ and don’t have me fill out any agreement, I’m only here for a day after all”. That surprised me… even for someone using a single Day Pass, I like to be covered in case something happens to them in the office so that I am not liable, and so they are agreeing to our terms and know to follow our rules, etc.
What does your office do in situations for customers that only need a single day pass and will not be back? Do you just use the honor system like how this person mentioned “coworking offices around the country” operate? Do you maybe have a simplified, single-page version of your agreement?
Ha, I’d reply to that comment, “I suppose some coworking spaces might be run that informally, but most businesses wisely carry liability insurance, and customers who use their facility must at least legally accept some kind of “terms of service” agreement. Some might also have theses agreements a bit “hidden” behind a checkbox that most customers dont bother reading but we like to be upfront about it and make sure our customers know what their rights and responsibilities are. Sorry if our agreement seemed excessive to you but, even for our day pass customers, the agreement is there for everyone’s protection.”
I’d be careful about making any sort of decisions based on that one person’s feedback. Maybe if it were a notable pattern that people start your day pass process and don’t finish it…but that’s a whole different story.
Interestingly, one of the most common things we hear is how few places even have guest passes of any kind, and folks are refreshed to find that we offer anything at all.
At the same time, we think of passes more as a convenience and a door to walk through, rather than a key part of our business model, as they largely add up to a rounding error in our overall revenue.
In terms of risk management, all of the times we’ve had to use our terms or code of conduct is to remove someone were all after they’ve done something wrong… which an agreement on it’s own won’t prevent. And if someone is just there for a day, I don’t worry as much about long term damage.
That said, we’ve done a few things to streamline and set expectations early:
we communicate that our space is a members-only community space, but make guest passes available.
guest passes are prepaid via our website, and communicate critical info as part of the post-purchase experience
we basically require a tour upon arrival, which is one of the most important parts. our tour is partially functional (where stuff is, what resources they have access to) but the real purpose is to set the cultural expectations and usage boundaries. we ask them questions, and let them ask us questions. this step weeds our a large % of the issues that our agreement/house rules are for.
Bottom line, most people aren’t going to read a long agreement anyway so instead we opt for putting the most important pieces of information and boundaries in plain language right on the purchase page, rather than a separate document.
Obvs, your milage may vary and this very much depends on factors like the kinds of folks you tend to attract, whether or not it’s easy for people to walk into your space without an access code of some sort, etc.
Oh absolutely, I won’t be changing anything because of this. The only plans I have are at some point digitizing my forms (currently they’re paper/PDF - and I accept digital signatures of course - but I’d like to set them up as forms on my website).
