When Cramer welcomes you into their 70,000 square foot headquarters, you see more than a busy office. From the moment you step into their lobby, you can tell they’ve thought deeply about their visitor experience.

Based just outside of Boston, Cramer is an experiential marketing agency that works with some of the biggest brands in the world, including UPS, IBM and GE Healthcare. Like many agencies, Cramer refers to their clients as ‘partners.’ Unlike most agencies, Cramer has designed Partnership into their entire way of working with clients—starting with their workspace.

“We want our clients to come to our studios and, when they can, to spend the whole day here, working side-by-side with their teams,” said Brent Turner, SVP of Solutions. This extends beyond typical client meetings; not only do CEOs bring employees for strategic offsites, Cramer’s studios also serve as a community hub for startups and professionals.

The gateway for this activity is Cramer’s newly renovated lobby, an elegant, high-traffic space whose main purpose is to frame a lasting impression. “When visitors come to our space, their initial impression is formed by three things: the person at the front desk, how the physical space is designed, and the check-in process. We knew Envoy would be a critical part of that equation,” said Turner. “Envoy has not only solved an obvious need for us, it’s done so with gorgeous design and interaction. Envoy delivers with elegance the way our brand is expressed for visitors.”

 When visitors come to our space, their initial impression is formed by three things: the person at the front desk, how the physical space is designed, and the check-in process. We knew Envoy would be a critical part of that equation.

Maintaining balance between community and confidentiality

Balancing an active community space with the need to protect confidential client information can be tricky. By embedding Envoy into their sign-in process, Cramer has found a way to navigate this in a way that matches their brand.

“We want our clients to see from the outset that we’re an agency based on openness and transparency,” said Turner. With Envoy, they’re able to incorporate non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) into the sign-in process in way that ensures clients feel confident they’re protected, but that doesn’t interfere with the Cramer’s welcoming atmosphere.

“We love that we can use Envoy to add NDAs into the visitor experience. It helps us maintain a community feel while giving our clients peace of mind. For us, it’s a killer feature,” said Turner. Envoy’s integration with Box, a cloud-based file sharing platform, also means those signed NDAs are easy to find. Each NDA is automatically uploaded to the team’s Box account as soon as it’s signed.

Envoy has become part of the Cramer experience

Although the front desk team are big fans of Envoy, they’re not alone: Turner says the software has become an important tool across the whole company.

Before Envoy, they had tried using a public paging system to alert employees about their visitors, but it ended up being disruptive. After that, the team had to individually notify employees by calling their phones, sending emails, and messages on Skype for Business. “This was not only time-consuming for our front desk team, it showcased elements of confusion, disorganization, and uncertainty for our visitors and our teams. None of that should be shown during a welcome experience,” said Turner.

With Envoy, hosts are automatically notified via text message or email when a guest arrives. “When you’re in such a massive space, mobile notifications are important—especially since we don’t have an environment where you’re always at your desk,” Turner explained.

Cramer has also been able to use Envoy’s customizable visitor sign-in fields to ask visitors if they’d like to subscribe to Catalyst, their highly popular newsletter. “For a while, Envoy was one of our top channels for acquiring new subscribers,” said Turner.

Overall, adding Envoy to their workspace helps underscore Cramer’s business values. “One of our cultural values is: ‘The Way We Do Anything is the Way We Do Everything.’ Because we’re in the experiential business, we need to make sure our own experience—as a brand, as a company, as a physical space—is a direct representation of that,” said Turner. “We’re obsessive about our visitor experience, and that’s why Envoy is critical. It’s intentional that one of your first touch points as a visitor is this beautiful, tech-forward, check-in system.”

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