IS REMOTE RIGHT FOR YOUR SITE?
obvious benefit is the decrease to staff cost.” Another benefit to having a remote site is providing 24-hour rent- als and access. “I was on a training session with a call center agent late in the evening, and a customer needed a storage space that night because she’d been kicked out of her boy- friend’s home. She was literally des- perate to put everything in her parked car somewhere safe so she could find a place to stay for the night. This location was a remote, 24-hour rental location, and she was beyond thank- ful. She didn’t know what she was going to do. If she had gone and gotten a room, she was afraid some- one would have stolen everything from her car.” Bob Copper, owner of Self
Storage 101 and Copper Storage Management in Birmingham, Ala., says his companies now only own/ operate remote sites. In addition to lower payroll costs, he points out that there is less turnover in the management positions, fewer man- ager-instigated customer service issues, no store-level theft, and a higher percentage of tenant insur- ance penetration.
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remote management? According to Copper, two of the main challenges to remote management is losing out on retail sales and occa- sional customer service issues. “Usually Bluetooth locks not working,” he says. Stacie Maxwell, vice president of
marketing and training for Universal Storage Group, says there are key challenges to operating a remote site: • Technology costs - “Investing in the right technology, infrastruc- ture, and training for staff to use these tools is imperative,” Maxwell says, adding that costs for maintaining and upgrading
SECOND QUARTER 2024
What are the main challenges to
technology and technological limitations should be considered.
• Customer perception and service - “Customers may have reservations about remote services impacting the quality of their experience,” says Maxwell. Convincing them of the reliability and effectiveness of remote operations is crucial for maintaining their trust and satisfaction.
• Sacrificing boots on the ground marketing - Maxwell explains that while 42 percent of the compa- ny’s rentals originated online in 2022, a substantial 54 percent found their facilities through drive-bys, repeat visits, referrals, events, and other various organic marketing efforts. That same year, 7,000 people visited USG facilities through events held on the prop- erty. “Without an on-site manager to showcase your facility and engage in direct marketing, you’ll relinquish access to a consider- able portion of potential tenants.”
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a remote site? DeBord says there are several key elements you will need to run a remote site: • A robust, user-friendly mo- bile-responsive website featuring online rental capabilities and options for click-to-live chat or click-to-call customer service
What technology do I need to manage
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to change and make my tenants feel safe? Mixon contends there may be facili- ties in high-crime areas that simply cannot be managed remotely. “With no staff on site, even if there are cameras, gates, fences, and alarms, there will still be problems and crooks who know how to work the system. The strangeness that is self-storage, from customers using the hallways as bathrooms, tenants living in units ... these situations need a manager to take control and fix the situation sooner rather than later, not days after the incident occurs,” says Mixon. However, Copper notes that most
crime occurs after hours when the facility is not staffed anyway. “There’s really no difference in how it is man- aged,” he says. “You must have plenty of cameras and good lighting, as well as other security features. On-site man- agers shouldn’t be expected to directly respond to criminal activity anyway, other than call the police, and remote monitoring systems can do that.” For many facilities, our experts
agree that fully remote sites or hybrid remote sites are the wave of the future for the self-storage indus- try. No matter the age demographic, more people are using online ser- vices and became even more famil- iar with such services during the pandemic. “This is what the customer
• An on-site rental center equipped with a kiosk or touchscreen, complemented by two-way au- dio or video functionalities, enabling customers to seek assistance or ask questions
• Online and on-site unit size guides and videos, along with displayed sample units
• Implementation of electronic leases (as well as ability to pay online)
demands,” says DeBord, “whether it’s their bank, grocery store, or their self-storage facility. As self-storage operators and technology providers, it is our job to give the customers what they want.”
Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell is a freelance journalist based in the Ozark Mountains. She is a regular contributor to Messenger. Her business articles have also appeared in Entrepreneur,
Aol.com,
MSN.com, and The Kansas City Star.
Self-Storage NOW! 31
How do I over- come resistance
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