Savvy management and strong customer service have always been essential to success in self-storage. But now the industry has entered a new era in which technology is increasingly becoming a differentiating factor among self-storage operators facing off in highly competitive markets.
Operators with the right combination of technological tools are able to thrive and become market leaders, as the storage REITs have demonstrated as early adopters of online rentals, digital marketing, and data analytics .
This collection of tools is known in the biz as a tech stack. Your tech stack includes platforms such as software, websites, CRM, digital marketing services, access control, payments, auction management, and AI assistants. Having all the tools in place is only half of the battle, making sure they all integrate together smoothly to maximize your efficiency is the other.
Evaluating Your Self-Storage Technology Stack
To make sure you have the right tools to achieve your goals, it’s useful to periodically evaluate your tech stack. This gives you the chance to identify any redundant, underutilized, or ineffective tech tools that you may be using. With this information you can identify opportunities to streamline or automate processes further, and then move on to make adjustments to your stack.
Begin with a list of all of your tech tools and services and for each item consider the following questions:
- How much does it cost?
- Who uses it?
- What goals does it help us achieve?
- What are the business outcomes?
- How does it interact with our other tools?
- Is it scalable?
- What are the alternatives?
Evaluating Your Facility Management Software
For self-storage operators, the best place to start is by looking at your facility management software as this is the heart and brains of your tech stack. The ability of your FMS to sync and integrate with other tools and platforms is often crucial, especially as you expand your online presence to find and attract tenants.
If there are inefficiencies or your team is using too many workarounds to accomplish tasks, it may be time to consider upgrading to a more robust software solution. It could also be the case that there are certain features or settings that you aren’t making the best use of and a simple fine-tuning is all you need for now.
Evaluating the Rest of Your Tech Stack
Having a fully functional FMS is a great start, but to tap into online demand you’ll need a few more tools to compete effectively.
Self-Storage Website
Today’s customers are accustomed to interacting with businesses across a diverse array of channels. A self-storage website is crucial for capturing the growing mobile-first generation. These customers want to complete their storage transaction online, and operators that provide this experience will win their business.
Questions to ask yourself:
- How well does your self-storage software communicate with your website?
- Are your prices and inventory up-to-date?
- Can customers easily rent a unit online and pay their bill by phone?
- Does your website provide a compelling user experience that converts visitors?
- Do you have an AI enabled chatbot that helps customers rent units?
Identify any friction points or areas where your website is lacking modern features. Can you address these with your current solution? If not you could benefit from upgrading to a more robust solution like Storable Edge and Storable Websites. Digital Market Services can boost the performance of your website by using SEO to improve your placement in search results and placing targeting ads on social media sites.
Self-Storage Business Intelligence
Another upside of having an integrated FMS and website is having access to a wellspring of valuable data about your performance. Having the ability to synthesize this data into actionable reports is a major hurdle that self-storage operators need to overcome in order to unlock the power of this enormous resource of information. With the right dashboards, you can make more informed and confident decisions and respond to changing market trends.
Dig Deeper with Storable Business Intelligence
Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) for Self-Storage
CRM systems provide businesses with the ability to centralize the collection of leads and direct the follow up process in order to maximize conversions. In the self-storage industry, CRM software collects customer contact information from incoming calls and texts and puts it into a central database. Automated responses and lead tracking aims to increase conversion rates.
Building your own CRM system can be costly and cumbersome, and a generalized solution can require quite a bit of customization to fit the needs of the self-storage industry. Storable CRM is custom built for the self-storage industry and integrates with your website and FMS.
Self-Storage Access Control
Having a remote access control solution that works is another vital piece of the customer experience. Security is one of the top concerns of customers, and the other is convenience. Having a cloud-based access control system gives you the flexibility to manage access points for multiple facilities from any location. This allows you to keep out unwanted visitors and respond quickly if any of your tenants have any problems with accessing the facility. If your system is up to par, customers should be able to rent a unit online, receive access codes on their device, and use the provided codes to seamlessly access the facility. If there are frequent hiccups to this process, you might consider an access control platform that integrates better with your FMS.
Self-Storage Collections
While attracting, converting and engaging tenants are the main part of your business, it is important not to ignore the impact that technology can have on automating the collections process. With automated customer notifications and mobile payment options, you can recoup more revenue and maintain consistent cashflow. At the same time you can reduce the growth of delinquent accounts and the hassle of onsite auctions.
Upgrading Your Tech Stack
Whatever the state of your tech stack, there is always something new to try or learn. Exploring new features or adjusting settings can have impactful effects on your performance. Technology is always changing and improving, so it is important to continuously review your tech stack to ensure that it doesn’t become outdated. Ignoring these processes can lead to missed opportunities to leverage technology to reach new markets, improve retention, and reduce delinquency.
Looking for a more in-depth evaluation?
Reach out to Storable to review your tech stack with one of our experts, and see where you could benefit from our latest products and features
