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True Stories
By admin on August 16, 2006 | No Comments

Carmen Huff, successful PhoneSmart call center rep spins a sad story for us.

Welcome to the PhoneSmart self storage blog an inside view of the self storage industry.

A Little Story about A College Student, and A Self Storage Unit That Never Came To Be

This is a rather sad story for those of us in the storage industry about how we lost a potential customer. I received a call from a parent telling me how her daughter was in the process of going back home for the summer from college and had wanted to store her stuff for the summer in a storage unit. The college student was a freshman attending college in another state was not familiar with the area but did go through the yellow pages and called a storage facility. It was sad that while she had tried to contact the storage facility several times, she was never able to get a hold of anybody there. Thus, her parents ended up driving over two hours to her new apartment when school resumed. As I was speaking to this college student’s mother, she was telling me she as the mother, was willing to pay upfront for six months worth of storage no matter what the cost if it has saved her having to drive up because her daughter is always acquiring things and never has enough room.

The mother emphasized how dearly she loved her daughter but how the drive alone, picking up he daughter’s stuff and eventually taking it back to the new apartment her daughter was going to move into the following semester was a headache, since her daughter was going to fly back home from the summer anyhow.

Unfortunately, the storage facility that the daughter had called to inquire about is not one of our clients, well at least not yet. The mother was calling me from her home state where she had looked up a facility in her area that is a client of ours and was curious if that company had a facility in her daughter’s college town area. While the facility that her daughter had called, advertised flyers on her college campus, she could never get a person to speak with. That facility must have been inundated with calls and they surely missed an abundant amount of calls from many other students needing to store their belongings.

So what did I learn from this…several things. Advertising. You must market/advertise your facility anywhere and everywhere. Especially in college towns, whether it is college boards or mailings to dorms and apartment complexes. Make flyers and have someone post them on college campuses advertising a college special offered to them so long as they store for two months, which most college students need to do so anyway. The average college student will have moved an average of at least four times while in college, most of the time having to store their belongings.

Once you have placed your advertisements, the calls from students needing that unit will start to pour in. You better make sure you have enough people to answer your calls and assist them, because if a student cannot get a live person ready and able to assist them to acquire storage, not only are we failing our college kids, for they have enough to worry about, but that new potential storage business is being lost.

PhoneSmart will go far and beyond to assist you as a client to aid those college students get a storage unit so that their parents won’t have to worry about having to drive hours to pick up their stuff, and at the same time your company is making money. It’s a win-win situation!

Self Storage in Texas Standard, Drive Up, and Climate Controlled Units Available…12430 Bandera Road, Helotes, TX
Call 210-372-0935

Quality Assurance Recommendation at Total Quality Assurance Services

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Thank You, RPH!!
By admin on July 13, 2006 | No Comments

Submitted by Natalie Thomas, ultimate secret shopper and prize patrol princess.
Welcome to PhoneSmart’s secret shopping blog, the inside peek at the mystery shopping and secret shopping industry.

Here’s what some of our clients think of the Role Play Helpline.

I just did a role play with Jeannette. She was very helpful to me in presenting the move in special. Her approach is really great & I will use it on my next phone call. It is nice to try different approaches & see what works best.

Jan

I just did the role play with Carmen and we both seem to have enjoyed it. She and I both made it relaxing and not intense that we were not able to have a come back response for the customer when they ask us certain question like is this 99.00 for the whole year for rental of the space and also she got me good she pretended to have an incoming call and I persisted to let her know the details and shot her the price and then I got her attention even though she did place me on hold. She helped me with selling points as well as telling me the good things I did. Helping our customers should not be intense but should be enjoyable knowing that we are there when they need us and we have what they need.

Deborah #122

I am sending this to let you know that the role playing line has helped me a lot. I was having problems getting people to give me phone #’s and they helped me by telling me to say it helps to have a number just in case the unit you need becomes available sooner or so we can call you with any information that might apply to you as a new prospective customer.

They have also helped me to get credit card reservations-by telling customers you know we are very limited on number of units available-so to assure you have a unit you might want to go ahead and reserve with $10 credit card payment today. Believe me this has really helped you should see my bonus envelope this month. (Note, I used the money phrase from week 2).

I was also having problems with keeping customer on line long enough to give them info before price and they helped me in this area. They told me to let customer know had to wait for price to come up on the computer and until it does let me tell you about our property and the specials we have to offer. This really works too, as we are getting many more hot leads, etc.

Today I called and spoke to Julio and asked him since we are 95% full and unsure if we would have a certain size available when they needed unit in future-how to handle this. He helped me by saying we could always let them know don’t have that size at this moment- we do have 2 units that are side by side and we could rent them for the price of the one you want, but would need to hold with credit card. He also said that if the size they want should become available then we would call them.

I don’t know about everyone else, but these things have helped me. You can tell our hot lead reservation rack is always full of hot leads and credit card reservations. This too accounts for part of the reason we are 95% full. Jackie & Cris always tell us to work our phone to the max give that customer all your undivided attention and you will get results. So you see the role play helpline helps as well as all the help we get from our upper management. Thanks for being there when we need you and keep up the good work.

Jean Hawkins #1610

If you would information about our Role Play Helpline please contact us at 1-866-639-1715.

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Selling Self Storage 101
By admin on May 26, 2006 | No Comments

PhoneSmart’s Sarah Little gives us a crash course in selling self-storage

Three years ago I began working in the Phone Smart call center. I knew I’d be selling self-storage over the phone. I had previously had a vacuum cleaner sales job, which was pretty hard-core selling. So, I thought to myself, “This will be easy, how much can there be to selling self storage?”

Although it seemed like an easy job, it turned out to be a lot more intricate and detailed than I thought. Aside from all the call center software, and rules, I had to learn the storage industry.

So whether you’re a veteran or a newbie at selling storage, let me give you a quick run down of the key points you should cover when talking to a prospect.

Greeting:
Be happy!! SMILE! Give your name and your store’s name and ask how you can help.
Qualifying:
Ask the customer these 3 questions (at least)
1. How soon do you need storage?
2. Are we a convenient location for you?
3. How much do you have to store so that I can find you the best size?
Value:
List some of the benefits of storing at your facility.
Price:
Give the price AFTER you’ve qualified and built value.
Close:
1. Create urgency (motivate the caller to rent now)
2. Take the caller’s contact info (name and number)
3. Encourage a reservation
4. Invite them in and make an appointment

Ending the call:
1. Ask if they have any other questions
2. Thank them for calling.

PhoneSmart Your Offsite Sales Solution
Inside Self Storage Expo in Reno See Tron Jordheim
Property Management Blog The ins and outs of Property Management

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Practice Makes Profit
By admin on May 17, 2006 | No Comments

Welcome to the PhoneSmart call center blog, an insider diary in the self-storage industry

Sarah Little, our Secret Shop specialist and all around Admin star offers the self storage Role Play Helpline

By now you may have heard about PhoneSmart’s newest service, the Role Play Helpline. It’s a new concept in the self-storage sales training industry, so I’ve explained it to a lot of clients and the secret shopping department sent out some information packets about it. But just incase you may be wondering just what happens on the Role Play Helpline, I’ll tell you.

Let’s pretend you have an employee named Emily and Phone Smart has a call center rep named Lucas…

Emily calls our helpline and Lucas answers the phone like this, “Hi thanks for calling the Role Play Helpline, what would you like to discuss today?” Emily tells Lucas she has trouble getting a reservation from customers who say they’re still shopping around. Lucas goes over a few helpful tips about how to overcome that concern. Then he says, “Ok, let’s role play a call. Would you like to be the customer or the manager?” Emily decides to be the customer and Lucas begins the part of the manager. He takes Emily from start to finish, and then recaps some more pointers. He then offers to reverse roles and give Emily a shot at it. Emily proceeds in the part of the manager and feels much better about customers who are “just shopping around”.

So I hope that now you can see the valuable one-on-one lessons your employees could gain from this experience. If you’d like to test it out give us a call at 866-639-1715 and ask for Sarah or Natalie. We’ll be happy to give you a few freebies and let you try us out. We are happy to help self-storage, mobile storage, property management, apartment sales… you name it!

PhoneSmart Your Offsite Sales Solution
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“Role Play”, anyone?
By admin on April 14, 2006 | No Comments

Sarah Little our Secret Shop and Evaluations specialist takes us down a different road

And now for something completely different

And where we stop no one knows . . .

Sometimes some of my best ideas end up being so far from where I started that it is impossible to retrace my steps and remember how I got there. I remember a few projects that took a turn for the worse, but, all in all, the end results have been unique and fun.

When I’m ready for a change, or am asked to make one, I like to start with what I’ve got. I take the ideas and “dream up’ a little something different. I like to think of ways I could change a process and make it an entirely new service or idea.

Gather a little information and research what you are aiming for. It’s always helpful to see what everyone else is doing, and what he or she isn’t doing. Sometimes what they aren’t doing can be the thing you do that gives you one up on them!

Anyone would jump at the chance to expand business and begin generating new clientele. One of the best ways to do that is to know your clients and ask them what they would like to see. This gives you a general direction to go in.

One of Phone Smart’s more recent services is our Role Playing Helpline. I’d like to say that I thought of it, but it was Tron who came up with the innovative method of training. It really is the perfect tool. An employee can call in and get help with anything they have trouble with in his or her sales presentation.

What makes it so great is that the Helpline can be used by anyone at any level of sales experience. They can use it on their free time. And the best part is that it pays for itself 100 times over.

If you could gain just one more renter a month because your employee knew how to present the service, how much would you be willing to invest? I say invest. You really are making an investment when you hire an employee. You put, to some extent, the success of your business in their hands. They make first impressions and maintain some kind of rapport with your customers. It’s up to you if they are given the tools necessary to increase your revenue.

If you’d like to get onboard with this creative and powerful new tool contact us at sarahlittle@phone-smart.net
Take some time to look at what you’ve got and dream up a little something that could liven up an old product or make a new product.

Sarah

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What is PhoneSmart
By admin on March 10, 2006 | No Comments

PhoneSmart turns your missed calls into profit…and then some! PhoneSmart is an off-site sales force experienced in creating rentals.

We help storage operators send profit to their bottom lines through our call center, sales training, secret shopping, ad tracking, on-site call recording and lead generation services.

Whether you want our sales people taking your missed phone calls, or you are concerned with creating and converting more rental inquiries, PhoneSmart has a sales solution for you.

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Thanks
By admin on November 21, 2005 | No Comments

Thanksgiving time

Before you get busy preparing for this weekend’s activities, I wanted to take a minute to thank you.

Thank you for paying attention to our blogs and passing them on to your friends and associates. Our readership keeps increasing and that can only happen when you care enough to spread the word.

Thank you for supporting PhoneSmart’s effort to be relevant to our property management, secret shopping and self storage customers.

Thank you for being a client and helping us create a business model that helps you run a better business.

As you spend time with friends and family this week, I hope you take the time to be thankful and be joyful.

You will be on our list of people to thank.

Thank you,

Tron

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Spanish calls
By admin on November 18, 2005 | No Comments

Since we have a lot of Spanish speaking sales reps and since we take calls for lots of parts of the country where there are Spanish speakers…

PhoneSmart adds Spanish Call Group.

In order to meet the growing needs of Spanish speaking Self Storage users, PhoneSmart is adding a Spanish call group option for its call center customers.

This means that incoming calls from stores where Spanish is the prevalent language will ring straight to PhoneSmart’s many Spanish speaking sales reps. The added convenience for callers will mean more rentals for PhoneSmart clients.

Tron Jordheim, PhoneSmart director said, “Better than a third of our sales reps speak Spanish, so the time is right for us to add this feature. We answer for many stores in Spanish speaking areas and we have seen how successful you can be with Spanish callers. The Spanish call group will be just one more way we help our clients rent more units.”

PhoneSmart is a sales solutions provider for self storage owners, offering call center, secret shopping, sales training, lead follow-up, lead generation,
ad tracking and on-site recording services.

More information is available at tron@phone-smart.info .

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New Look of Phone-Smart.info
By admin on November 11, 2005 | No Comments

Have you seen our new PhoneSmart web site?

We did a redesign so it is more user friendly. Take a look at it when you get a minute and let me know what you think

The address is www.phone-smart.info

I get to hear the names of a lot of storage businesses. I heard one recently that really tickled me. It is called “Cram-a-lot”. Every thing is decorated in a “King Arthur and the knights of the roundtable” theme. Pretty cute, eh?

Thanks

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Free Website Details
By admin on November 8, 2005 | No Comments

When you buy a link on Want2Store and get your free web site, this is what you get…

Look at www.justestuff.com and see an example.

Here you go:

Possible Pages include:
Email list page
Driving direction page
Calendar page
Event page
Online form
List form (to build marketing lists)
Bulletin board
Document page
Price page
Picture page
Frequently asked question
List documents
Benefits include:

Professional Templates
You can choose over 100 professionally designed and customizable templates to create your websites!

No Software to download!
The administration/publishing interface is web browser-based, so it can be accessed from anywhere in the world at anytime.

Navigation Bar / Buttons / Menus
Site Express allows you to create customizable / professional looking navigation menus and buttons.

WYSIWYG browser based editor
Interactive editor that allows you to style your html contents without knowing html codes or any other programming language. This editor is very similar to MS. FrontPage/Dreamweaver and it’s web based!

Real Time Integrated Shopping Cart
There is an integrated Shopping Cart that can be added VERY quickly. The shopping cart has real-time UPS shipping integration, 3rd party credit card processor integration, and a fully customizable administration utility.

List Manager
Build-in list manager that will allow your visitors to subscribe their email address to your site. You can then broadcast your advertisement or information to your subscribers as easy as 1-2-3!

Real Time Stats
Real time webstats that will display traffic and visitor information of your website. This will help you manage your growth and marketing directions!

Page Colors
Select from over 1000′s of background colors, text colors and link colors for that unique look.
Background Images

Most templates allow you to choose from over 100′s of background images for your page. The background images are optional. You can even upload your own!

Image Library
Select from over 1200 images in the image library.

Icon Library
Some of our templates use an Icon for the upper left of the page. You can select from our library or upload your own Icon.

File Up-Loads
File up-loads through the browser, both images and HTML files.

File Management
Complete file management through the browser. Eliminating all need for FTP. You can Up-Load Files, Rename Files, or Delete Files.

Advanced Page Editor
The HTML code for your pages can be edited at any time. You may add javascript or enhance your pages in any way.

Manage Pages:
Add, Remove, Or Delete a Main Page or a Sub-Page.
Add/Edit content on pages, change the PageType, or change the name of a page. You can also “Change Page Order” or “Pages Per Line” in the manage pages section.

Site Options:
Change your header text, graphics, or colors. Change your websites lefthand graphic or your footer information. From the Site Options section you can also change your : Theme, Buttons, Metatags, or Site and Text Colors.

Manage Images:
View / Delete images that are currently available to your website. You can also upload new images to be available for content on your websites pages, or for product images.

Company Information:
Change your company information, footer information, administration password, or register a domain for your website.

WebSite Marketing:
Register your site on Search Engines, or do an email marketing campaign with all emails in you email list.

E-Commerce Options:
Activate and setup your e-commerce catalog on your website. You can add products that you want to sell, setup your shipping methods, setup a real-time credit card processor, or view orders that have been placed on your website. You can also view full website visitor statistics from this section.

Manage Categories Section:
This section allows you to add, edit, and delete categories from your catalog (place on your web site where your products are sold). Categories group up products so that customers can quickly find what they are looking for. If you delete a category, all the products under that category are not deleted, but you will have to assign them to a different category under the “Edit Products” section in order to have them visible in the catalog.

Manage Products Section:
This section allows you to add, edit, or delete products from your catalog. If you delete a product it is gone for good, but if you set a product’s status to “Inactive” then the product will not be seen from the website, but it will not be deleted from your catalog. To set a product to “Inactive” edit the product, and under the “Active Product:” section, set the drop-down to “No”.

View Orders Section:
This section allows you to view orders that have been placed on your website. You can view them by date ordered, by amount of the order, or all of the orders at once. Once you have the orders listed, you will see all the collected information about the order, and will have the option to delete the order (which is permanent) or you can bring up the printable version, which creates a order that is print formated.

Shipping and Tax Section:
This allows you to set shipping and tax options that are appropriate to your needs. The tax is figured out based on your state, and a percentage that you set. The shipping is more complex, and can be setup to fit almost any need. See the Help under the shipping section for a more detailed explaination.

Real-Time Processors Section:
This section allows you to select which real-time credit card processor you want to use. You will need to have an account setup with these processors in order to use them. Or there is the “Regular SSL” option that doesn’t use a 3rd party processor, but collects all the information from the customer locally.

Terms and Conditions Section:
The terms and conditions are displayed for the customer just before the final checkout is completed. It can be last minute details about the order, or simply the terms you have layed out for the order.

Check Statistics Section:
This section give full statistics about the visitors to your website. It gives visitors, page views, by date, and also tells ip and connection information. There is even a graphical representation of the hits to your website.

Turn E-Commerce Off Section:
Toggles the E-commerce on your website. You can turn it on and off without loosing any product or sale information, but it isn’t recomened to click this button unless you are serious about turning the e-commerce off so that customers can’t make purchases on your website.

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