Call centers and storage

Call Centers Pick Up on Storage Opportunities

By Tron Jordheim

You probably all know someone in the storage business that is using a call center to answer calls that their sites miss. If you have ever called one of the larger storage operators to check their pricing or to hear their latest specials, you may have reached one of their call centers. You might even be using one yourself. You might, however, still be wondering how a call center fits into the storage puzzle.

Using a call center as a partner is not much different than using any other vendor as a partner. You have management software companies, builders and building material suppliers, snow removal and landscape companies, auctioneers and others that fill a position on your team to help make your operation work. Let’s look at how a call center can add value as a part of your team, too.

Every site misses phone calls. The most effective managers will miss calls. The fact is that phone traffic to your stores comes in waves. The phones can be slow for several hours and then get very busy for short spurts. Sometimes phone traffic compliments walk-in traffic and sometimes it will work in opposition. It can happen that you have several people at the counter at the time when your phone traffic for the day goes nuts.

Even when store staff can juggle people at the desk and people on the phone at the same time, it can be difficult to focus on the caller enough to give that person a good experience. As you know, first time callers have no loyalty to your store and are perfectly happy to call the next ad in the phone book if they don’t like how you answer the phone. Then of course you have phone calls after hours. Many consumers of storage are busy with work and family and may not be able to sit down and make a few phone calls during your regular office hours.

Every site spends significant dollars and effort to attract new business. The idea of spending money to drive phone calls to your site, just to let that callers get a busy signal or an answering machine is frightening.

But is a call center a good solution to the problem? Why not expand office hours, forward missed calls to cell phones or use voicemail or an answering service? Expanding office hours adds additional payroll cost. You can, however, adjust your hours of operation to match peak periods of phone and walk-in traffic. But it is far less expensive to allow a call center to answer after hours than add additional payroll.

Forwarding calls to a cell phone can be effective if the number of missed calls is low. Once you start answering three or four calls every night on your cell phone, it becomes a less attractive option. But it is also difficult to be a quality telephone sales person for new rental inquiries while standing on line at the bank, loading the dishwasher after dinner or trying to put your kids in the bath. You also have wage and hour considerations when forwarding calls to a cell phone. Technically, your staff person is on the clock when taking a call on his cell phone. This means that you might owe over-time to some of your employees.

Voicemail only works in markets where you have patient shoppers who already want to do business with you. There are few of these markets left. For most operators, there is plenty of competition and there are lots of choices for consumers. Most self-storage buyers are making calls now because they want to make a decision now and cross “Find storage” off of their to-do lists. If you can’t answer their questions and sell them a unit, they will find someone who can…now. Most people are on the go and it is very hard to reach people in response to a voicemail message. While you are playing phone tag, they may be signing a lease at your competitor’s place. Studies have shown that only 30% of callers will leave a message in the first place. How many of those messages were first time callers looking for space? I would suggest that the only people who will leave you a message are your current customers who just need to relay some quick information to you or who can wait for a call back on a simple question.

Answering services are not much better. People are used to getting the information they need and being able to make a reservation or a purchase if they talk to a live person. To have an answering service rep tell you they can only take a message is no less frustrating than voicemail for buyers.

Call center may not be the right word to describe what a call center does. Reservation Service or Lead Generator or Relief Manager may tell a better story. Call centers will talk to your current tenants and your rental prospects. When talking to your current tenants, a call center acts as your relief manager, helping callers with simple issues and referring more complicated issues on to your a mangers by email, fax or voicemail.

Every storage operator is trying to find ways to increase average length of stay rates. Call centers can help with that. There is a pain and pleasure ratio that determines whether tenants will stay or not. It goes like thisif the pain of getting your stuff out of storage is greater than the pain of paying the rent, then the stuff stays. Having a friendly and helpful interaction with your call center reps rather than getting a busy signal or voicemail will help your tenants feel better about staying with you.

The most profitable use of your call center is to stop buyers from making the next call in the phone book once they have called your store. The chances are that your store offers what buyers want and need. It is the job of the call center reps to help callers talk themselves into renting with you rather than continuing to call around for prices and information. Many times callers are ready to commit to a unit and make a reservation after getting the information they need. These people are taken “off the market” for your store. Many times people may not be ready to reserve a unit but are willing to schedule time to come to the store to take a quick tour. Your call center can book these tours, so your staff can help that caller rent with you after the tour. There are many people who call because they are planning ahead and can be turned into quality leads that your store staff can rent to in the weeks and months to come.

Simply put, a call center will drive people to your store that would have otherwise ended up at a competitor.

Your call center should have the same information about your properties that your store staff does. There are many methods using email, web updates, and software integrations that allow your call center to look at current pricing and availability on all your units. The call center screens will show all the features, policies, directions and top selling points for your store, so the telesales reps can answer almost any question and be able to sell your store with confidence. Call centers are equipped to be able to differentiate calls from your store from calls for their other customers, so call reps can answer with a store specific greeting and have all the information they need in front of them before they answer the phone call.

Once the call center has finished a phone call, they are equipped to fax and or email the lead, reservation or call result report to your store staff, so your people can do whatever follow-up is necessary as soon as possible. The follow-up is key. The call center reps can go a very long way to create well qualified leads and reservations, but a swift and effective follow-up call from your staff is required to seal the deal. You certainly don’t want to spend time and money to create potential business from your missed calls, just to let them linger without effective follow-up.

One advantage call centers have is that they can monitor and coach reps immediately. Call quality control is very important to call center management. This is what helps them create added value for you. Call centers record calls and monitor reps to help with sales processes, call flows, customer experience and time efficiencies. Also, call center reps do not have to know how to do lock-checks, mo

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