Customer Journey Map - The Social Hub

As The Social Hub expands its co-working and remote services, it seeks to attract a growing segment of remote creatives and freelancers.

However, the brand’s current onboarding experience and workspace communication lack personalisation and emotional resonance.

To better meet user expectations, a research is conducted to define a primary persona and identify experience gaps across the user journey.

Research Approach

• Competitor analysis – I've analysed key global and local players like WeWork, Spaces, StartDock, and 42workspace
• User review analysis – Searched for recurring themes from platforms like Google Reviews, Reddit, and Trustpilot
• Persona development – Creating a key persona for this target audience of The Social Hub

Competitor Analysis

The co-working market is highly segmented, with each competitor targeting distinct audiences, from students and remote workers to tech startups and creatives. The Social Hub uniquely positions itself by targeting students, remote workers, and expats while offering high flexibility and lifestyle-focused amenities like hotels, bars, and gyms.

Beyond pricing, competitors differentiate through interior design and experience. The Social Hub's playful, urban aesthetic contrasts with WeWork's sleek corporate, modern approach reinforcing their distinct market positioning and target audiences.

Persona development

I've developed a persona to represent the key target audience of The Social Hub. A 28-year-old freelance UX/UI designer who works remotely across Europe.

She values flexibility, inspiration, and community, but often struggles with unclear booking systems, impersonal onboarding, and uncertainty about the workspace vibe.

Laura’s goals, frustrations, and emotional needs are the basis of the customer journey map and helped finding and highlighting opportunities for improvement.

Customer Journey Map

While Laura ultimately completes a successful but challenging journey at The Social Hub, her path reveals significant moments of uncertainty during the discovery and evaluation phases.

These early touchpoints lacked clarity, warmth, and differentiation all of which are essential for a creative professional like Laura, who relies heavily on first impressions to make decisions.

Though she went ahead with a trial, a less motivated or more skeptical user may have dropped off earlier, choosing a more transparent, visually engaging, or better-communicated co-working space.

This highlights an opportunity for The Social Hub to strengthen its digital storytelling, onboarding clarity, and brand personality earlier in the user journey. Doing so could turn hesitation into confidence, and casual interest into long-term engagement.

Opportunities & Next Steps

Based on the user journey map, the key opportunities center around three main areas:

• Enhanced storytelling and social proof - Improving how the space communicates its value and community through better visual content and testimonials from existing members.
• Streamlined decision making - Simplifying pricing information and adding visual tools like walk-throughs to help prospects evaluate the space more easily.
• Improved onboarding experience - Creating more personalized welcome communications and better orientation support to help new members integrate into the community and navigate the space confidently.

These opportunities collectively address the gap between Laura's initial curiosity and her goal of finding a creative, flexible workspace where she can connect with like-minded professionals.