We’ve all had our fair share of experiences with poor design or difficulty understanding how to use commonplace items. Even something as simple as a door has induced universal frustration for many people.
So it wasn’t a surprise to uncover that WeWork locations can be hard to find. We know it. You know it. It also means that 65% of the tours we host do not begin on time (or not at all) because of this one small but significant reason.
A lot of the time, this is due to circumstances we cannot control, but as WeWork’s User Experience team, we believed there could be a way to improve the situation. Comprised of some of the best and brightest minds in UX, we worked with our awesome Community team to develop a solution.
In fact, the solution was pretty simple — an email with a GIF produced favorable results.
Entrance to WeWork Holyoke in Seattle, Washington
Entrance to WeWork South Station in Boston, Massachusetts
The Pre-Membership Team — the team responsible for making sure we create a delightful first impression — found that a simple email with a GIF of WeWork’s entryway improved on-time arrivals by more than 200%. On top of that, the number of people actually showing up for a tour increased by 25%.
This means tours not only start on time, it sets a positive tone for our guests, and helps our community teams maintain an uninterrupted schedule.
When tours increase, it could also mean more sales.
This has inspired us to find ways of improving the experience for our members and their guests using this simple, yet effective approach. We’re currently developing a way to integrate these GIFs into email confirmations our members’ guests receive when they are scheduled to visit a particular location.
This means our members’ meetings can start on time, and in turn are more productive and successful, and therefore happier members! Okay, we’ve extrapolated that one ourselves but we know that a simple GIF can make a big GIF-ference!
One thing we were not able to resolve is what is the correct way of pronouncing the word ‘gif’. I’m not sure we can handle that one…
But in the meantime, here are a few more GIFs from our amazing community teams around the world!
Entrance to WeWork Be’er Sheva in Be’er Sheva, Israel
Entrance to WeWork Valley Towers in San Francisco, California
Entrance to WeWork Yanping Lu in Shanghai, China
Entrance to WeWork 42nd Street in New York, New York