The days of simply opening your self storage facility every day and maintaining a 90% plus occupancy rate are over.

For the last few years, all you needed was to have the power on and a functioning gate and you had high occupancy.

Those days are over.

The market is getting more sophisticated and the inventory and choices available in your market are increasing.  This means you’re going to have to earn the right to have customers come to your facility and stay there.

You need to stop thinking like a self storage owner and start thinking like a self storage customer.  If you don’t someone else will.

In the markets we’re in having a customer doesn’t mean you’ll keep them.  We have a marketing series specifically for customers in other facilities.  You may not see the marketing but you’re customers will.

Become Your Own Customer

Here is my coaching: think less like a self storage owner and more like a self storage customer.

Why? Because if you don’t someone else will.

The new buzzword today, especially in online marketing, is “Customer Journey” and I really relate to it.

The Customer Journey involves looking at and then creating or improving every touch point your potential customers have with your company.

When someone sees your facility in their Google search or drives by your facility or hits your website that starts a journey.  If your on top of the touch points of that journey, it can result in them renting a unit from you.

But that is only the beginning. Remember, self storage is like a subscription model business. You are getting paid each month.

That is part of the Customer Journey too.

Your customers’ have to enter your facility every time they go to their unit. That is part of the Customer Journey as well.

At any point, there could be a breakdown, and when that happens, odds are you will lose them as a customer.

Or get a bad review.

You can have the best facility there is, but if you are not responsible for the experience your prospect or customer has you will be out of business.

The Customer Journey

How do you become responsible for your customer’s journey?

Go through it yourself, from start to finish, and make adjustments.

“But we get customers from many different avenues. You mean I have to go through all of them?”

Yes.

And don’t stop there. What is the experience as they come in and rent from you? What is their experience as they go to their unit for the first time?

Open the door for the first time alone?

Come back the second time. The third time?

Pay their bill.

“You mean I have to try to figure all of this out?”

Yes.

“How?”

There are a few ways. Some people advocate “Customer Journey mapping.”  This is a fancy way of looking at all the “touch points” a prospect and/or customer has with your brand, then making sure each experience is positive and moves them forward.

As self storage owners and business owners, we actually have to be responsible for the experience someone has with every touch point.

Again, if you are not responsible, someone else, maybe our company, will.

Identify your customer’s touch points:

Before becoming a customer.

During the process of deciding on your facility.

While becoming a customer.

After being a customer and using your product.

When they no longer need your product.

When they complete being a customer.

“Where would I start?”

I suggest starting with where you get your new customers.

You do track where your customers come from don’t you?

Here is a typical facility we have and our new lease tracking form.

At this facility, you can see we have over 30% come from past customers and referrals. This is good because it tells us that the customer experience was so good that they come back and refer us to their friends.  It also helps that we pay a $25 cash referral fee.

You also see the average value of a customer there is $4,190. I know you have heard it is cheaper to keep a customer (or get a referral from a customer) than get a new one. Well, here it is in black and white. At most, we have paid $25 for those new customers.

So start here. What is the customer’s experience when they contact the facility on a referral?

How is the phone call handled?

How is the referral fee paid? For us, within one hour after a lease is signed, even if we have to shut the facility down, that referral fee is in the hands of the person who sent the referral.

We also get 20% from the internet. Now I know that is a big place. Web Sites, ads, search engines, etc. But go through every portal to your facility and experience what a customer does. Would you rent from yourself or your company?

Adjust the landing page, images, whatever it takes to create an experience your customers would want?

Not sure what they would want? Here is a novel idea: ask them.

It is OK to ask questions as people rent from you or to send short surveys. Most of what we know didn’t come from us, it comes from our customers.

Then what is the experience like as they rent from you? Are they appreciated? Do they get a handwritten card mailed to them thanking them (as well as checking the address on the lease)?

If you are using a KIOSK, is it easy to use and figure out? Is there live help?

Go through every touch point.

I am really getting that being good today isn’t enough. We have to be Excellent Plus. Most companies are good, and being good just doesn’t stand out anymore.

It is always good to do a Customer Journey audit. As a business owner, we have to be responsible for the experience our customers have with our company and brand.

Remember if we don’t, another self storage company will.