Clarification

The August 12th issue of the Columbia Business Times, a local Columbia Missouri business newspaper features a profile of The PhoneSmart Off Site Sales Force. It is a well written article that manages to paint a pretty good picture of how PhoneSmart serves the self storage industry. The article also includes excerpts from an interview with self storage insider Tron Jordheim, the director of PhoneSmart. (That’s me)

There is one quote I would like to clarify. It was taken somewhat out of context and omitted the whole the point of my overall comment. The quote goes like this, “The biggest challenge is keeping your customers. Customers are very fickle and even though they might like you today, they may not like you tomorrow.” I in no way meant to insult any customers or suggest they are flighty or even suggest we have trouble keeping customers.

I was talking about how a company needs to be customer-centric. I was trying to explain how customers don’t always know the good work you are doing for them, because if you are doing your job well for them, they don’t really notice you a whole lot. You become part of their standard operating procedure and can become invisible.

Then something can happen internally in your customer’s company or you can make an error that your customer doesn’t appreciate and you fall temporarily out of favor with your customer.

The part of my interview that the quote missed was where I said something like…

This is why PhoneSmart tries to be very sensitive to our customers and we react quickly if there is a problem or an issue. We have an entire department dedicated to quality assurance. This is why we try to keep lines of communication open and talk regularly with customers, so we know what is going on and can do whatever we need to do to stay relevant and to continue to create value. We have a whole department dedicated to client care and contact.

This is why we have a variety of billing options and a variety of service packages and can customize many aspects of our services. We want to create value and not just provide a service.

This is why we send our clients an ROI report every month, so they can see how much profit we are helping them attain.

This is why we love demanding customers and customers that are quick to point out problems. Every opportunity we have to improve our service and to prove our worth is a very valuable opportunity for us. We are eager to show we have a “Can-do” attitude!

Anyway, of you are already a PhoneSmart customer, I hope you are seeing on a day to day basis that we are working to be your most valuable business partner.

Because of this, our customer base is very solid and we have many long and mutually beneficial business relationships with some of the most successful operators of self storage businesses in North America.