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Welcome to PhoneSmart, you’re off site sales force call center in Columbia, Missouri.
Our self storage blog explores self storage trends in the self storage industry.

Written by Natalie Thomas, TQAS executive and business blog writer.

Back to the buzz.

Your local self storage unit provider in 819 N. Eola Rd. Aurora, IL. 60504

Total Quality Assurance Services has a customer care divison.

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Written By Ronald Smith, PhoneSmart call center reservations specialist.

Welcome to the PhoneSmart call center blog an insider diary self storage industry.

Your local self storage unit provider in 449 S. Federal Hwy. Pompano Beach, FL. 33062

Total Quality Assurance Services offers advanced Telecommunication hardware and software.

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Welcome to the self storage blog, where self storage insiders come to read about self storage trends. Today’s self storage blog is from Ann, who is one of our great sales people.

January/February is a rather slow time in the storage industry. Families are thinking about moving in a few months, college students are thinking about summer vacation, homemakers are thinking about spring-cleaning, etc. And it is the perfect time for PhoneSmart to be thinking about how to improve upon what we already do well!

Here are just a few examples:

 We have hired several new phone reps. They are all English/Spanish speakers, expanding the services PhoneSmart can provide. Now is a great time to teach them the ropes so they will feel very comfortable helping customers and renting storage units during the upcoming rush.

 We are having a re-training program for the veteran employees. Now is a great time for everyone to get back to the basics; break any bad habits that might have crept up during the past year. It is also when we experiment with new ways of saying the same old thing. For example, Tron is running a contest for different ways to say the catch-phrase, “How may I help you?”

 Admin is busy updating store information. Now is a great time to make sure the store screens are correct and easy to read. Cleaning up computer screens and making sure everything is accurate makes things easier for phone reps and store managers alike!

And how can our clients help PhoneSmart during our winter makeover? Please take a minute to look at your store screen and let us know if everything is accurate…
 Are your prices and specials correct?
 Is the number of your vacancies right?
 Has anything changed, like the manager name, office hours, truck stipulations, etc.?
 Do you have any suggestions on how PhoneSmart can assist you in renting more units, or ideas on how to facilitate the process?

FEEL FREE TO SEND US A
FAX @ 886-639-1716 OR GIVE US A CALL @ 866-639-1715
WE WELCOME ALL INPUT!

HAPPY RENTING!

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Welcome to the self storage blog, our diary of the self storage business. One of our client’s store managers asked us how many credit card reservations our reps typically average. He was trying to compare our results with rental inquiries with what he is doing at his store.

Our call center manager, Robin sent him this response, which you might find of interest.

You may want to take a few thing into consideration when trying to get an overall picture of reservations per day. Certain circumstances will affect those numbers.

Personally, I like to look at a goal of credit card reservations per number of calls taken instead of per hour, simply because everything depends on the number of calls you take in an hour. Your results will also depend on what time of day or time of week you are working. Ideally, I go for 1 reservation out of every 10 calls. This number also includes wrong number call-ins, current customer calls, truck rental inquiries, etc.

Circumstances to consider: During the 1st and last week of the month, as well as Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays, during the morning/afternoon shifts, and the summer or holiday season you’re more likely to have a greater number of reservations.

Other considerations: some stores might be sold out and we can’t take a reservation for them. This year’s natural disasters have also played a part this year in the number of reservations. For example, we answer for the Lake Charles StorageMart. While the store was without power and when its computer was down, we couldn’t take any reservations at all for a period of time.

Depending on how long you can hold the unit will also be a factor. For example, store managers may be able to hold units longer since they know exactly how many units they have left, where as we may only have a general idea.

Just recently we made a slight change to our hold time on units, expanding the time frame from the max hold time of 2 weeks, up to a 4 week hold. This will also start to affect our numbers.

Unfortunately the winter season is fast approaching and rental inquiry calls will decline. Right now our numbers are still fairly good. Many reps are averaging 1 credit card an hour or better. Not too shabby!
Robin

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Welcome to the self storage blog, where we keep a diary of our experiences in self storage.

Today’s blog entry is form one of our sales rep Joseph. He wanted to share a story.

“I had a woman call that was very ill and she needed two 10×12.She couldn’t physically come and get the units right away and the store screen showed that there were only two left.

I let her know that I couldn’t promise that these would be available when she needed them, but I would do the best I could.

I took the time to contact the manager after making a reservation for her, only to find out that he sold one of the units already. I was happy at least to know that I got her one of the units she needed. The manager said he would help her get into another unit that he had coming available that hadn’t yet shown up on our screens. He usually goes in to the PhoneSmart website every afternoon to update us on his pricing in and availability.

It makes us as sales reps feel good when we go the extra mile to make sure we get the customers complete satisfaction. And it feels good to know that we tried the best we could. Even if things don’t end
up as planned all the time, the customers know you did at least take the time to care.”

-Joeseph

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How long is the decision cycle for self storage renters? I believe we sometimes think the decision cycle is immediate and end up missing out on rentals. We sometimes assume if a caller or visitor doesn’t decide to store right away, that they are not going to store. Our experience with callers is that 20% of inquiry callers are prepared to make a reservation on their first contact. That is one out of 5. That is quite a few people who are immediate buyers. Of the people who won’t make a reservation, some need a unit right away and others don’t. We have been watching conversion rates and follow-up systems for these Hot Leads. We are seeing a 30% close rate over about a four week period. During our follow-up calls, we see many people’s schedules slow. By this I mean if they were hoping to move the end of April, sometimes they won’t get it all together and move until the end of May. Many times people put the storage unit to the back of their minds. Then when it is time to get the storage unit, they may have out you to the back of their minds, too, and they start the whole process all over again. If you are out of their minds, they may not call you or visit you this time. This leads us to believe that the sales cycle on self storage is often two months. So don’t be too quick to write off a prospect, because they did not rent immediately. Keep following up with new information, sweeter offers and helpful suggestions. A significant number of your leads will rent from you.

Tune in Wednesday of this week to read an entry form Mike Scanlon of the Self Storage Association.

Bye for now, Tron

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I know we just sent out lead/reservation number 200,001. People often ask how many rentals our leads and reservations turn into. Well part of it depends on how well you follow-up. But on the whole about 20% of rental inquiries make a credit card reservation, of which 75-85% rent. Another 70% or so of rental inquiries become a hot lead.

A hot lead is either someone who needs a unit right away, but doesn’t have a credit card, or is a person who is not yet ready to finalize plans. You should rent to 20-30% of hot leads. This translates into a lot of rentals. Overall, most clients are renting to 35-45% of all leads and reservations combined.

We could improve our percentages, if we would let the difficult callers slip away. But when callers say they want to shop around some more or say they are not ready to do anything, we snap to and get to work helping the callers decide to store at the place they called.

So our 200,000 storage leads translate into about 80,000 rentals. If you figure an average rental is worth at least $600.00 or $700.00 in most markets, we have created over 5 million dollars in value for our clients. When you consider that the vast majority of the rentals we create would be lost to our clients without us, we earn our keep in a big way. Bye for now, Tron

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One thing we deal with a lot at PhoneSmart is the potential customer at your gate after you have already closed the office. Some of our clients have an on-call staff person who can meet these after-hours rentals and get them signed up. Other clients never do after-hours rentals. Either way is fine with us as long as we know what to tell people. Sometimes we can take a reservation for that after hours person and have them come back in the morning to rent. Other times we have to tell them “Too bad, so sad” in as nice a way as possible. I know some operators are trying to automate the whole move-in process so people can take care of themselves. This is great, except your lawyer would tell you that you need a clean lease and you need to have checked ID before allowing someone to put their stuff in your place. So how do you handle the after-hours rentals? What works best for you? It does make sense to have someone available for after-hours rentals, because the value of an extra rental might be $500- $1,500 on average depending on your market. Bye for now, Tron.

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