Getting Lost

How many customers do you lose because people get lost or distracted on the way to your self storage place? I bet more than a few. We had a call this morning from one of our great clients. She runs a store that we send quite a few leads and reservations to. She called back a reservation we had sent her this morning and the guy we had talked to already had rented at a competitor. Her conversation with him made her think he didn’t know which store he thought he was renting at. She called us and we pulled the recording of the call and listened to it. It sounded like the caller was not completely sure of the directions, but he said something like, “Yeah, yeah, I know where it is.” After we listened to the call, the rep who took the call realized she should have re-confirmed the directions with him just to make sure. So just like a man, he headed off to store his belongings not quite really sure where he was heading. He pulled into the first self storage place that looked like it might be kinda sort of where he thought it might be and rented a unit. Dang. One lost for our team.

We know from experience that if a caller knows where the store is located and says that it is a convenient location, your odds of renting to him just doubled or even tripled. This is why we normally make a big deal out of the location when talking to callers and why we normally make sure they say they know how to find the store. In a case like this, we can do an instant review with reps and help reinforce the importance of not taking, “yeah, yeah” as enough of an answer.

We have also seen that people can be easily distracted. We started answering for another store about a year ago. Conversion rates on leads and reservations were going well. Then a new competitor built down the street a ways. We knew that a new competitor had built close by. But soon the conversion rates dropped dramatically. OK, so we went trouble shooting. We went through all the information we had on the store screen to make sure we knew the store well and were selling its best features. We made sure the follow-up program at the store was still sound. Then we uncovered the problem. The store staff had not given us a new set of driving directions after the competitor opened shop. We were directing people right past the new store. So some people were distracted by the new store and pulled in to check it out. They found it to their satisfaction and chose to rent there. Other people simply pulled into the new store by mistake and rather than admitting their mistake, they chose to rent at the competitor. As soon as we changed the directions to guide drivers the other way to the store, the conversion rates jumped back up to where they were supposed to be.

So be careful that people can find you and don’t end up at your competitor by mistake. We think taking a pre-paid credit card reservation has proven to be a great way to keep people from being distracted. But also make sure your directions take your prospects directly to you.

Make sure to come to the self storage blog on April 27th. We will have a special guest writer for that day’s submission. Bye for now, Tron

Tweet This Post 

Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

View admin's Profile      Subscribe via RSS