Getting Business

With the prospect of that new job (of which more later/tomorrow) I wrote a bit about my own doubts regarding the prospect of primarily working from home, and being on my own most of the time.  I’m still not sure how I’d handle that, so I thought I’d make some enquiries about the costs of renting either a shared office or a ‘proper’ office in a block where I’d at least have the opportunity to socialise with other people, rather than becoming even more hermit-like than usual.

I found three local offices of interest, two owned locally and one national company – Regus. I’ve worked in Regus offices before, so wanted to use them for comparison purposes more than anything else.

However, the experience of trying to find out costs from Regus was noteworthy – and not in a good way – so I thought I’d write about it.  Bear in mind, in all three requests I made it clear I was interested in getting a quote for comparison purposes, but that I was definitely planning to be using an office somewhere.

The two local companies came back within an hour, one with a quote, one with a range of options, and saying “But you’re best off coming in when you get a chance, so you can see what we offer” – which is reasonable.

But Regus. Ah, Regus.

First of all I got a response asking what it was I was interested in, and where. (Despite having already explained in the initial contact email – which was copied at the bottom of the response) So I explained – again – that I wanted to know costs, either for getting a ‘day office’/’shared office’ for a few days a month, and also for renting an office longer-term. Not a difficult concept, you’d think, for the industry-leader in office rental/hire.

But no, this seemed to be an utterly brain-melting experience for the little fuckwit I was dealing with. Over the course of 12 – twelve! – emails, he gave me information I didn’t need, and completely failed to understand what I was after. I asked him to pass it on to a manager, someone who could answer the question. He forwarded it on, asking them to call me. They didn’t bother.

I finally got hold of one of their sales managers today, to explain the problems I’d had with getting an answer out of Regus. From that point I’ve had the quote I wanted – and it’s less outrageously expensive than I’d expected, in honesty – and the offer of a significant discount because of the cock-up, and the fact I’ve stuck with trying to find out.

But it’s pretty scary, when you think about it. This is one of their primary channels for getting new business, and it failed utterly. I could have (and indeed should have) just abandoned it ages back. That’s what Regus deserved. I just kept on going because I was interested in just how long it would take, and how bad the experience would continue to be. After all, if this is how they work with people before they’ve received any money, you can only imagine how much worse it would be once money had been handed over, and the person/business was a captive entity.

Sometimes you just wonder how some companies actually stay in business.