Introducing the Boffice team: listening to entrepreneurs and continuous learning at the heart of everything

"A company is only as strong as its ability to understand, listen to and support its customers." 

Seated in front: Eerika Honkanen and Tommi Ora. Heini Sandén, Peik Hämekoski and Olli-Kristian Tukonen.

The Boffice background team: Tommi, Olli-Kristian, Peik, Heini and Eerika sat down with Maria from Kasvu Agency to share their thoughts on their work in the midst of the office revolution.   

Strong experience of the needs of small businesses

Boffice's founders, CEO Tommi Ora and Olli-Kristian Tukonen, responsible for the real estate portfolio, say that the strength of the Boffice team lies in its team spirit and versatility. The team has experience in global service sales, technology development and serial business development. Several members of the core team have also previously worked in micro-enterprises, whose needs are at the heart of the concept.

"We are lucky because we all have different skills and strengths that complement each other. Entrepreneurship, transparency and fairness are important shared values that guide our actions, both among team members and clients," Ora sums up.

Boffice's business idea was sparked by the frustration of small entrepreneurs in the founders' networks with the inflexible and expensive office rental market. Tukose also had first-hand experience as a serial entrepreneur:

"Times have changed somewhat, but for small businesses, cost-effectiveness of premises is still at the forefront of needs," Tukonen says.  

Easy-to-use technology to help customers

Peik Hämekoski, Head of Technology Operations at Boffice, tells the team that technology is a tool, not an end. He has seen how even small changes in technology solutions can make a big difference to customers' everyday lives. 

In spring, Boffice launched the customer portal developed by Hämekoski at the Etu-Töölö site, and it was soon rolled out to all Boffice office hotels. The service has received a lot of good feedback and has clearly accelerated the interaction between customers and Boffice.  

"In customer service, the advent of technology is inevitable. But it is still important that the customer feels heard, understood and that they have received a clear answer to their question," Hämekoski stresses.

Peik Hämekoski's job descriptions are varied. Modern technology packages may alternate between a drill press and traditional tools, with a twinkle in his eye.

Building the warmest customer experience

Customer experience has been one of the cornerstones of Boffice since the beginning. The newest addition to Boffice's small and agile core team, Eerika Honkanen, a Customer Service Manager, brings with her strong expertise in customer experience. Honkanen believes that understanding customer needs goes much deeper than just reading feedback forms:

"Every feedback is an opportunity to learn and improve. Discussions with customers are invaluable because they give us a direct link to their real needs." 

Honkanen visits all the Boffice offices in the city centre on a weekly basis. Although customers mostly communicate their wishes digitally, developing a better understanding of customers requires face-to-face encounters. 

"We have come up with quite a few development projects with entrepreneurs just in the corridors or in the cafeteria," Honkanen says. 

Continuous learning about the needs of hybrid work

Heini Sandén, responsible for customer acquisition and partnerships, emphasises the importance of continuous learning as customer needs change with hybrid work.

"Our customers value cost-efficiency and flexibility highly, but alongside these have come a variety of needs related to the versatility of the working environment, which we need to keep up with. Sustainability is becoming more important and the demand for recycled office furniture, for example, is growing rapidly. We are constantly expanding our network of partners to better meet customer needs.

In his work, Sandén has noticed that many entrepreneurs are now looking for a way out of their home offices and back into the "people's world". After a long period of teleworking, meeting other people in the working environment is again seen as a vital resource. This is also the case within the Boffice team. "I'm the first one with my hand up when it comes to thinking about who can come to a lunch meeting on site," Sandén laughs.