REGUS VERSUS PACIFIC WORKPLACES COMPARISON

Click on your location of interest for detailed Virtual Office & Meeting Room price comparisons, and for customer review benchmarks.

Summary of Price and Reviews Comparison

In December 2018, we conducted a thorough comparative price analysis of Virtual Office and Meeting Room services between Regus and Pacific Workplaces’ (Pac) locations. We picked centers that were closest to each other, and in buildings of relatively similar standing. Although we like to think that Pacific Workplaces provides a more attractive workplace, with state-of-the art technological environment, superior presentation equipment, and better curated communities, most outside observers would probably think that at first glance they are substantially similar to Regus’ locations. Hence, this analysis of price differences, and of Google and Yelp reviews for each location, is relevant and meaningful. We share the data in all transparency, using the same methodology everywhere.

*On March 27, 2019, Regus' counsel sent a letter asking us to remove this page, suggesting that our price comparisons are not on an apple-to-apple basis. Whereas there are differences in our respective product offerings which we indicated as accurately as we could, we have added in green some additional differences brought up by Regus' outside counsel, but we refuse to bend to what we see as intimidation by Regus designed to have us take the page down, as we believe that this page is informative and genuine. We have also added in green Regus’ arguments with our comments, for the sake of full transparency.

Here is what we found:

1. On average, Basic Mail Plans are 71% more expensive at Regus than at a comparable, nearby, Pacific Workplaces location. In one case the prices were the same. In the best case, Regus digital mailbox plans were more than twice as expensive as Mail Plans offered by Pacific Workplaces.
2. Regus’ “Virtual Office” packages are, on average, 23% more expensive than the Pacific Workplaces “V-Office” Package, while the V-Office Plan of Pacific Workplaces is significantly more flexible than the Regus equivalent. For example, a standard V-Office plan at Pacific Workplaces gives members free access to 20 hours of Day Offices each month, or 20 credits that can be used in larger meeting rooms. The Regus closest package, on the other hand, provides access to only 2 days of Day Office access. This means that if you stay only 2 hours in a Regus Day Office, you have exhausted one full day of your two-day allowance, whereas at Pacific Workplaces you have consumed only 2 hours of Day Office use (or 2 credits), leaving you 18 credits to use in the same month!
   *Regus informed us they offer a free lounge membership that includes unlimited access to lounges worldwide with their Virtual Plans. Pacific Workplaces also offers free access to the business lounge at the Virtual Plan member's home location, but no free access to business lounges at other locations. Access to other locations, including our CloudVO Global Network, comes at a premium but provides access to day offices and meeting rooms, not just to business lounges. We believe that Regus has a similar product that also comes at a premium.
3. Regus’ “Virtual Office Plus” packages, are on average, 24% more expensive than the Pacific Workplaces “V-Office Plus” Package, while the V-Office Plus plan of Pacific Workplaces includes more free services and is infinitely more flexible than the Regus equivalent. For example, a standard V-Office Plus plan at Pacific Workplaces gives free access to 50 hours of Day Offices each month, or 50 credits that can be used in larger meeting rooms, not just Day Offices. The Regus “Virtual Office Plus” package on the other hand, provides access to only 5 days of Day Office access per month. This means that even if you stay only two hours at a location, you have exhausted one full day of your five-day credit allowance. The similar “V-Office Plus” package at Pacific Workplaces allows you to consume only 2 credits in this example, leaving you with 48 credits to be used that month - in Day Offices or in any available meeting room - according to the credit system. The Pacific Workplaces V-Office Plus package also offers more services, such as free copies, scans, etc.
   *Same comment as above as this applies to both our Virtual Office and Virtual Office Plus Plans.
4. We also compared meeting room prices between Regus and Pacific Workplaces using conference rooms that can accommodate an 8 to 10-person meeting. In some instances, 12-person meeting rooms were benchmarked if that was the only option.  On average, meeting rooms at Regus are 45% more expensive in comparison to meeting rooms at Pacific Workplaces.  This is after accounting for the 10% discount any user can get with Regus after signing for an online account, and without considering similar VIP discounts available at Pacific Workplaces. This is a staggering difference!
   *Regus pointed out that they offer free community meeting rooms on the same day for up to 2 hours, although we are unclear which memberships this applies.  Our intent was to benchmark price comparisons for one-off/hourly online meeting room bookings.  Additionally, Regus has informed us they've adopted a dynamic pricing model in which meeting room prices change daily depending on the time and day of the requested reservation.  When we performed this analysis, we were unaware of the dynamic pricing feature when we captured the Regus data.  Presumably, this means that the Regus prices could be higher or lower as a function of occupancy and other factors.
5. Finally, realizing that price is not everything, and that customer service is a critical consideration in any office space and virtual office decision, we compared the customer review ratings published by Google and Yelp. We found that the average rating Pacific Workplaces has received from Google reviews was 4.15 on a scale of 5, which compares favorably with a 3.81 average for the Regus locations in this portfolio. In the case of Yelp, the difference is even more pronounced, with an average rating of 4.2 for Pacific Workplaces on a scale of 5, and a paltry 2.6 for Regus!

In conclusion, Regus is no match for Pacific Workplaces on Virtual Office and Meeting Room prices, and Pacific Workplaces has achieved significantly better customer reviews on Yelp and Google. At the bottom of this page we will advance potential reasons for this.  

Why is Regus that much more expensive than Pacific Workplaces?

The question is why is Regus so much more expensive when the quality of the space is similar and when their level of service usually falls short of Pacific Workplaces? We believe there are several main reasons for this:

1. Regus is subject to a large overhead infrastructure that a more nimble company like Pacific Workplaces is not subject to. Their corporate accounts alone are a significant source of overhead, not to mention a plethoric bureaucracy that should be better managed (but isn’t). That adds upward pressure on their pricing policy.
2. Regus has been the elephant in the china shop. They could get away with an inferior service and higher prices because they often were the only recognizable name in town. This was true not only for large corporate accounts, but also locally as they have overwhelmed the local markets with advertising.
3. Regus tends to deploy an insufficient inventory of meeting rooms in each of their centers, except for Day Offices.  This result is often overbooked meeting rooms. Inflating the price of meeting room bookings is a mechanism to take advantage of their captive user population which maximizes the return on space utilized, but not customer satisfaction. This is in sharp contrast with Pacific Workplaces’ approach of a larger inventory of day offices and meeting rooms in a typical location, which provides users with more booking opportunities at a lower cost.

A regional company like Pacific Workplaces is more active on social media than Regus is, and benefits from word-of-mouth. Our internet presence is strong. Radio/TV ads are no longer necessary to establish awareness. In the end, our cost of customer acquisition is significantly lower than Regus’ and more effective (which also reduces our own overhead and thus our ability to be aggressive on price).  Additionally, our affiliation with CloudVO and the CloudTouchdown global network of 700 locations enables us to compete with Regus and support our members effectively as they travel anywhere.

Pacific Workplaces vs Regus Google and Yelp Average Ratings

While generating about the same number of reviews on Yelp (~6 per center) Pacific Workplaces is generating more interest by Google Reviewers (~13 vs 10). More importantly, the Yelp ratings by users are significantly higher on Yelp for Pacific Workplaces (4.2 vs 2.6 on a scale of 5, on average). Regus also gets lower ratings with Google reviews. We believe this reflects our foundational core values, which we can summarize in two simple words:  We Care!

The conclusion to draw from this analysis is simple: Pacific Workplaces has a significant price competitive advantage over Regus and generates significantly higher customer satisfaction, to the benefit of its members.