As a go-to commercial real estate event and news hub, Bisnow has employees scattered all over the world, from Boston and Chicago to Miami, Washington DC and London. Many of those employees work inside coworking spaces in those markets, including Industrious and WeWork locations.

Late last year, it dawned on HR vice president Lauren Ramos and CEO Gregg Mayer that the firm’s New York City headquarters was the hardest office in which  to work. “It was the least desirable office to come in for trainings or team bondings,” says Ramos.

The company added bigger couches to make the space a little more comfortable and added a putt-putt miniature golf mat and a ping-pong table to make it more fun. But then they realized the big problem was the open floor plan and lack of privacy.

The company embraces an entrepreneurial, fast-paced, team-oriented culture, and it hosts more than 450 events a year. The company has also seen an influx of trainings, visitors and watched its workforce double to just under 200 people. “We have an actual gong that gets hit every time a big sale happens. We have dogs in the office, and we celebrate big wins,” Ramos says. 

Yet there was little space for confidential phone calls and Zoom meetings. People began complaining that they had to run around the office to find quiet, and sometimes it meant one single person occupying an entire conference room.

The office just wasn’t working anymore.

“It was definitely time for an upgrade,” Ramos says. But it finally hit company leaders: an upgrade meant either knocking down walls and restructuring what was already there or buying the same ROOM Phone Booths they’d used when they worked out of the coworking space, Industrious. The latter made the most sense.

Why did you select ROOM?
We only really looked at ROOM because we’d seen their products in beautiful office designs at Industrious. They had awesome office designs and considered the best functionality for multiple uses. My CEO was just like, “I just want their exact products.”

The ROOM Phone Booths are good for night or day—because there is a light in there. There are so many features. You can move them around.

Our office looks very industrial. We have the wires and the open ceiling, and our floor is cement and looks worn. So we didn’t want something too modern or too overpowering, such as a bright color that would stand out. We wanted something that looked sleek and cool.

The alternating dark and light booths in our space really look nice. We found that white ROOM products actually brightened up our office, because we don’t have a lot of big windows.

How many booths did you ultimately order?
We have nine ROOM products total. We initially bought five Phone Booths and everyone absolutely loved them. In fact, people were doing office tours on Zoom to show them off to people in other locations.

I was shocked when my CEO called me the next day after receiving them and said, “Get more. I see everyone’s faces, and this is beyond the reaction I ever thought. We’ll figure out where they go. Get more of them.”

We decided that with nine booths, we could accommodate everyone who comes to our offices each year for Budget Season Week. We fly our entire sales team, 80 to 90 people, into New York, and we usually have to rent out other people’s offices. People are all taking calls constantly to close massive deals, and they need privacy. This way, we wouldn’t have to rent out other offices for them. Each team could get a designated booth.

ROOM was great because they asked us the exact date that we needed them to arrive, so they could assemble them and ensure the elevator was available. We got the order within three weeks, and it was very, very fast.

ROOM handled the assembly, which was very nice. They were lovely and super quick.
Everyone just raves about them. People aren’t fighting over a room anymore.

How did you decide where to put them?
The most helpful thing was two people from ROOM came to visit our office and did a walkthrough with our office manager. They got to see our space, and then later they provided a visual document of two ways that they would suggest setting up these ROOM products. They really helped us decide where they should go. They pointed out how we could move a certain pod of desks to a different area. We moved our kitchen table and folded and moved our ping-pong table to the library. That was easy and we were getting complaints of the ping pong table being loud and distracting for anyone who sat near it.

We do have one Phone Booth that is completely on the opposite side of the office, and we thought that would be weird all by itself. But the team over there almost feels like they have exclusive access to their own booth—which is great.

We decided to do a wall of six booths, alternating black and white. They saved us money because they took up so much wall space that we didn’t have to buy new artwork.

Did having the booths allow you to be more strategic with your space planning?
They definitely helped create structure in our office. 

Finally, we’re not at this startup phase of our office. We’ve matured into a real office. It’s nice for people to think that they have easy access to a private room instead of freaking out and running around the office before an important call. The fluster is no longer there. We will build scheduling tools to reserve the pods going forward.

So how has it changed your office culture? 
We absolutely love everything that we have. Zero complaints. I’d definitely recommend them for a company that requires a lot of one-on-one and a lot of client calls. If you’re on Zoom calls, getting in front of business clients, it’s so important. Everyone raves about them.