New York, NY, December 5, 2011 – Jay Suites, a leading provider of executive suites rental, virtual offices, and other office space products in New York City, announced plans to launch a mobile version of its website and client portal late last week. The decision follows a steady migration among its visitors and customers to mobile browsing.
“The general mobile trend isn’t new, but we’ve began to notice it in our business only in recent weeks,” says Jack Srour, the company’s COO. Jay Suites uses advanced tracking technology to analyze data about its site usage, including visitor sources and platforms. The data has recently pointed to an increasing share of visitors who are accessing the site using mobile browsers. Juda Srour, Jay Suites’ President, explains: “As in any other aspect of our business, our website places high emphasis on user-friendliness and design. But since mobile browsers always represented a small fraction of our visitors, it didn’t play a major role.” Now, that has changed. “Mobile accessibility is now our top design concern,” he adds.
The NY-based office space provider will certainly be a pioneer in the area. A quick scan of the shared/flexible office space industry’s online presence reveals that its players have barely ventured into addressing mobile platforms, with virtually none adopting mobile websites. Granted, the industry is mainly comprised of relatively smaller office space providers (5 or less office space center locations) with relatively limited marketing budgets mainly focused on promoting their offerings. Yet even the larger, well-known competitors have not created mobile-friendly browsing experiences, a surprising fact given that companies of similar size in other industries have already launched well-developed websites geared specifically towards mobile browsers.
Indeed, general trends suggest that desktop devices still dominate the browsing world: according to StatCounter, just over 7% of all online usage involved mobile devices in October 2011. However, Jay Suites’ share is reportedly more significant, ranging as high as 35% on some days. Considering the typical target market of executive suites rental companies – namely, 1-8 person law firms, accountants and startups – this over-representation seems logical, and the lack of mobile adoption among competitors rather surprising.
Jay Suites has already commissioned its marketing team to create mobile-friendly versions of its website as well as its feature-rich client portal. Adopted two years ago, the proprietary portal allows users to book conference rooms, pay invoices, and submit service requests, among other tasks. Dozens of tenants access the portal every day – and lately, an increasing proportion of them have expressed the desire to be able to perform many of these functions on-the-go. Jay Suites’ management has considered an upgrade for some time, but was deterred by the costs of transferring historical data to a new system. But the need for mobile access convinced management to embark on the undertaking, further complicated by the company’s strong emphasis on high-quality design and functionality.
Despite the project’s overall complexity, Jay Suites’ management strongly believes in its potential to improve its customers’ online experience and boost sales. “At the end of the day, we’re here to provide the best service to our customers in new ways,” reiterates Jack. Mobile accessibility is a sure way to do so.
