Requests from every direction
A member messages the community manager on WhatsApp at eight in the morning: the heating in their office is not working. Another posts in Slack that the wifi keeps dropping. A third mentions at reception that the kitchen dishwasher is broken. A private office client emails to ask for another desk. The community manager is on a day off, and their colleague does not see the WhatsApp message.
By afternoon, the member with no heating has asked three times and is drafting an email to head office.
Why requests fall through the cracks
Coworking is built on friendly, informal contact, which is a strength. But informal channels do not keep records, and requests handled informally depend on who happens to see them.
- Members message community managers' personal phones.
- Slack and WhatsApp messages scroll away.
- Requests made in person are not written down.
- Maintenance, IT, cleaning and billing requests go to different people.
- Members are not told when their request is being handled.
- Nobody can see recurring problems across sites.
Operators often try a shared email address or a form on the member portal. Members ignore it, because messaging the community manager they know is quicker and friendlier. Any fix that asks members to change their habits tends to fail within weeks.
What lost requests cost
Members who have to ask repeatedly feel ignored, and a membership decision is made on how well the small things are handled. Community managers are on call through their personal phones. Recurring problems, like a meeting room screen that fails every week, are fixed repeatedly but never properly. And head office cannot see how well sites respond.
When a community manager leaves, their WhatsApp history leaves with them, along with every half-finished request.
Landlord issues get lost as well. In a leased building, some faults are yours to fix and some are the landlord's. Without a record, the reports you send the landlord's managing agent are vague, and the fault stays unfixed.
The request log we build
- Requests are captured from each channel: a WhatsApp Business number shared by the team, a Slack integration, a request email address, and a quick form at reception for requests made in person.
- Each request is sorted by type, such as maintenance, IT, cleaning, billing or bookings, and by site. AI suggests the type and a person can change it.
- An owner is assigned by type and site, and urgent issues, such as no heating or no internet, are flagged straight away.
- The member receives an acknowledgement and updates as the request moves, in the channel they used.
- Contractors, such as the maintenance or IT provider, receive the request with details and can update it through a link.
- A dashboard shows open requests, response times and recurring issues by site, room and type.
| Channel | How it is captured |
|---|---|
| Shared team business number | |
| Slack | Integration in the members' workspace |
| Request address, parsed automatically | |
| In person | Quick form at reception |
| Member app | Your platform's request feature, if it has one |
How the community team works after
Every request is logged, whoever received it. Members hear back without having to ask again. Community managers are no longer on call through their own phones. Recurring problems become visible and are fixed properly. And head office can see how each site is doing.
The records also support conversations with landlords and contractors. When the building's heating fails for the fourth time in a month, the log shows the dates and the impact on members.
Recognise this?
- Members message community managers' personal phones.
- Requests in Slack or WhatsApp get missed.
- Members ask about the same problem several times.
- Nobody can see how quickly requests are handled.
- The same fault is fixed again and again.