My adventures with Spacesworks in Bangkok

I cannot work from home, I just find it too distracting so last year when I moved to Bangkok, I rented a small office at Spacesworks Summerhill in Bangkok.

The office I had was minute but I could seat in the main co-working space if I wished, which was good as the aircon in my small cubicle was actually mostly stuck on freezing.

Spacesworks is actually part of the Regus group, which means that if you have rented space you can hot desk in other Regus locations around the world, which is great. I did use to have a Regus gold card in the past and made regular use of business lounges in UK, Japan, Hong Kong, etc…

However, this particular Spacesworks has totally put me off using Regus ever again. The level of customer care is so poor that I nearly seriously lost my cool on several occasions.

From the beginning, I gave my credit card details so I they could charge my credit card as soon as the invoice was due. But the system kept charging me late payment fees. I queried this with reception and was told that the issue would be resolved. Unfortunately, during the 12 months I was there, I was charged late payment fees every month… Which was frustrating enough.

I spoke to reception on several occasions but to no avail, the charges kept coming. Eventually I got a couple of credit notes for the older charges but the bulk of charges remained on the account. I insisted with reception on several occasions and was told that it had been escalated and credit notes would be sorted out. It took about 10 emails, several conversations with reception and still same reply, it has been escalated. In my mind, it had been escalated so many times that it must have been with the Chairman by now…. But still nothing….

Eventually, totally exceeded by the lack of action, I did a LinkedIn search and found the Regus country manager and wrote to him . The same afternoon, all my credit notes arrived…. Finally!

The story does not stop here as I got charged 880 Baht for “deep cleaning” my minute 2sqm office at the end of the contract. I really thought that in view of the hassle the credit notes issues had given me, they could wave this charge but the answer was absolutely not!

Then mysteriously my pass to get in outside office hours stopped working, I had to ask to get it re-instated…

Then 3 days before my lease expired, my office was “deep cleaned” while my stuff was still in there. They even wiped the glass window that I was using as white board thus removing all the information, I had on this before I could make a copy. I complained at reception but did not even get an apology.

When I gave my keys back, I was told that my two months’ rent deposit would be refunded within 30 days. I then received an email yesterday, 11 days after I left to tell me that I had to fill in an online form to get this refund, the email came with a 20 pages manual on how fill the form…. But then the form asks you for a sort code as mandatory field and will not let you save the form without it. There is no sort code in use in Thailand…. So, yet another email to let them know and get a reply…. Once the form was finally accepted, I received an email to let me know that the refund would happen 30 days after the form was accepted. So, forget the 30 days after the end of the lease, it will now be 41 days after I actually left.

I have rented space in a co-working space before in Hong Kong and been to quite a few co-working spaces over the past few years. This one strikes me as particularly poorly maintained. They also sell you the fact that you can get in after hours but the aircon is switched off, I attempted to work once over a weekend due to a pressing deadline but the heat in the building is such that it makes it impossible to work. The lights in the main area of the space are switched off at 6pm, you can stay but will have to work in the dark.

The space I worked at in Hong Kong had aircon, you could switch on if you worked late or over a weekend. They did not switch the lights off before everybody was gone and because of the community spirit, everybody made sure to switch the lights and aircon off when leaving late. And also, we had free coffee and tea, which again at Spacesworks is payable and as expensive as Starbucks.

All in all, they are just after your money and do not care about customers. Really poor experience that has put me off using Regus ever again.

#coworking #spacesworks #regus #customerservice