Section 9 • Utilizing Technology
the manager is tied up with another customer or away from the office, or if the call comes in after hours when the office is closed. See Charts 9.3 and 9.4 on previous page.
Today, more and more self-storage owners are continuing to incorporate self-service into their website storefronts to compete
for added rentals. Consumers are carrying around smartphones—business tools in the palm of their hands.
According to the OpenTech 2015 Self Storage Technology
Whitepaper, of approximately 1,061,212 calls tracked, 75 percent were considered service calls. Approximately 18 percent of the calls were sales inquiries, as shown in the accompanying Chart 9.3, with the remaining 7 percent being classified as “other” calls. These “other” calls include different scenarios such as an auc- tion request; calls from a facility owner, operator or manager; a bilingual call that is transferred to a Spanish speaking queue; a telemarketer solicitation; or a wrong number.
The whitepaper also states that out of 189,685 sales inquiries
received by the call center, 34 percent were converted to rentals. Effectively, we can see that the call center not only completed reservations for the facility but also scheduled appointments and provided both partial and qualified leads. Of special note, the “other” category in Chart 9.4 includes a number of different scenarios such as an unidentified party or caller who chose not to provide personal information, truck sales only, abandoned sales calls, or bilingual calls (sales calls transferred to the Spanish speaking queue).
Website Rental Applications Today, more and more self-storage owners are continuing to incorporate self-service into their website storefronts to com- pete for added rentals. Consumers are carrying around smart- phones—business tools in the palms of their hands. And as a result, storage companies with optimized websites are enjoying great success by renting units on-demand. For new online ten- ants, it is a welcome reprieve from the task of visiting a store dur- ing office hours and dealing with all the paperwork in person.
Should this trend continue, facilities that dismiss the use of
a functional website will find themselves unable to serve and engage a broader customer base through Web and mobile channels. In fact, current case studies reveal how online storage shoppers are responding when facilities implement a personal- ized Web-mobile rental channel.
One case study of interest is from I-Deal Self Storage. After years of attempting to convert reservations to rentals from their
108 Self-Storage Almanac 2016
website, the company needed a more effective way of convert- ing website traffic to real revenue and immediate occupancy. Owners stated that the reservation follow-up process was time consuming, costly, and that little response was received from Internet visitors. However, after installing an online rental ap- plication, owners reported renting an average of 20 units per month from their facility website (103 total rentals over the first five months).
The Technology Outlook Current facilities using self-service have a significant advantage and are increasing the size of their market radius because there is little competition from neighboring properties. Because of this, self-storage facilities with higher occupancy goals can ill- afford to take a wait and see approach as it relates to offering customers a variety of business channels.
As the adoption of technology continues to spread exponen-
tially, there will be corresponding growth in the consumption of storage through a variety of self-supporting channels and au- tomated devices that are independent from the office counter. Clearly, there has never been a better time for self-storage to be- gin leveraging technology and realize the significant potential for new sales, cost savings, and increased customer satisfaction.
Ready or not, there is a new generation of consumers, and
the old ways of delivering service don’t interest them. This gen- eration insists on using self-service technology to do things their way, and they are going out of their way to find it.
What does all this mean for your organization? Offering cus-
tomers cookies, water, and golf cart facility tours is not enough. Self-storage manag- ers are now turning toward the use of self-service tech- nologies to attract new generation buy- ers and fend off rival facilities.
Call Center Case Study
In October of Speed, conve-
nience and tech- nology are what appeals to the multi- tasking public with little time to spare. Today, storage own- ers, operators and managers need to be committed to attract new genera- tion customers in the ways they wish to contact you.
2014, Texas-based Assured Self Storage reported the effect of having added call center services to some of the properties in their portfolio. Over the course of a year, the properties using the Open- Tech Call Center saw an increase in occupancy from 71 percent to 82 percent—a net change of 15.49 percent. The comparative results revealed that stores not using the call center saw only a 5.63 percent net change in occupancy—from 71 percent to 75 percent.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152
