Manually managing visitors and workplace data 

Braze is the leading customer engagement platform that allows marketers to creatively engage with customers in real time and across channels from one platform. Founded in 2011, the company has grown into one of the world’s biggest digital platforms, handling tens of billions of personalized messages for users every month.

As the company scaled to over 1,000 employees across multiple global sites, Braze wanted to improve the workplace experience for its staff and visitors. They established a Workplace Experience team and hired Brooks Gooding, an experienced workplace strategist, to manage their global real estate, workplace, and design strategies.

But the new team had several hurdles to overcome.

Visitor management was manual and inefficient, with hundreds of requests submitted through Google Forms each month. This manual entry led to human errors and overwhelmed their team. The global pandemic made matters worse, as the team had to manually track visitors’ vaccination statuses, straining their resources even further.

Reporting on occupancy metrics was another challenge. Brooks needed to run constant updates on occupancy utilization and real estate costs, which meant painstakingly combing through CSV files.

“My life was a lot slower back then. I was spending hours—sometimes days—sifting through data,” said Brooks.

Coming out of the pandemic, the shift from traditional models of working highlighted the limitations of Braze’s manual processes and stressed the need for a more efficient workplace.

All-in-one solution for workplace management

After thorough research, Braze selected Envoy as their trusted platform for workplace management. “Other solutions were nice, but they lacked key features like visitor management, desk booking tools, or utilization data analytics. But Envoy’s all-in-one platform had it all,” said Brooks.

Envoy combines multiple workplace functions under one umbrella, which helps teams cut costs while simplifying integration and improving data hygiene. “Mixing different systems with different sources of truth gets really messy and complicated very quickly,” said Brooks. “Having everything on one platform with Envoy is extremely powerful for us.”

Braze quickly formed a close partnership with Envoy’s team and appreciated having a dedicated customer success manager to regularly discuss ways to optimize their use. 

“Everyone we've worked with at Envoy is constantly listening with open ears, coming to us with great ideas, and adding whatever we need—within reason—to their product roadmap. I work with a lot of vendors and Envoy is extremely rare.”

Automating visitor management

Braze initially used Envoy to streamline visitor management, a crucial move given the hundreds of monthly visitor requests at their biggest locations in New York and London. With Envoy, users can quickly submit requests through the platform, navigate the workplace using interactive maps, and check the real-time availability of desks and conference rooms.

Front desk operations are smoother, too. The Workplace Experience team knows what visitors to expect for the day and which rooms and desks are in use. They can understand their busiest days and hours, and allocate resources accordingly. 

“We can count these visitors at any location into our onsite utilization figures, which helps us with front-of-house ops planning, including how much food to buy for lunch or how much real estate we need,” said Brooks.

Easily leveraging insights for better decision-making

As Braze expanded their Envoy instance, they discovered an even wider array of tools and benefits. Today, the team uses every aspect of Envoy’s functionality, including room and desk booking, and powerful analytics tools.

With all workplace data consolidated in a centralized location, Braze can analyze occupancy data at a granular level. This information allows them to make informed decisions about space utilization, real estate investments, and operational planning.

“We can see who's in our spaces in real time and quickly make the necessary calculations for our design, real estate, and workplace strategies,” said Brooks. “And we can do it without having to spend days sifting through CSV files.”

Envoy's seamless integration with Okta and Brivo, their badge access system, allows Braze to bring individualized employee data into the mix as well. This allows the team to see onsite utilization numbers for specific departments, people, locations, and days of the week. However the team wants to slice and dice the data, Envoy delivers.

“I would recommend Envoy to absolutely anyone who works in the workplace and real estate world, regardless of industry. There's no size of a company that's too small or portfolio that's too large."

Boosting efficiency and increasing staff satisfaction

With so much functionality and automation wrapped up in one platform, Envoy reduces costs and complexity for Braze. Brooks highlights a significant return on investment from time saved on manual data processing. “The analytics is easily the most exciting part of Envoy for me, in terms of cost savings. We’re no longer spending days and weeks manually digging through data. So there's ROI right there.”  

Employees are more productive and satisfied since it’s so much easier for them to register guests and book desks and rooms. Remote and hybrid folks love the added visibility and flexibility of Envoy. The scheduling app helps them manage their onsite presence, as they can see who’s in on any given day and plan accordingly.  

For Brooks and the Workplace Experience team, Envoy is the complete package. “Envoy makes customized solutions that will meet all of your needs,” he said. “They have done that with us for years, and hopefully will continue for many years in the future.”