Customer Relations

Editor’s Note: This article contains material published in the book, How to Make Money in Self-Storage, by RK Kliebenstein and Jennifer LeClaire.This may be the most challenging time ever in our industry. The self-storage business has been a blessing for many owners, operators, vendors and managers, as well as customers. Now, we face obstacles we have never encountered before. Some ...

Sales is about figuring out how to make the buying process less complicated but more attractive, streamlined and frequent. Sometimes it requires a lot of tweaking to current practices and fundamental shifts in strategy. There’s an old military adage that says, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” In other words, the best planning only lasts until the barrage begins; ...

As my quest to improve our company’s client service, I came across the book, Customer Satisfaction Is Worthless; Customer Loyalty Is Priceless, by Jeffrey Gitomer, a sales guru I have long admired. The premise of the book is that clients who are only satisfied will turn to the competition on a dime, while loyal customers will not only stay with ...

This may come as no surprise, but the self-storage business is becoming more competitive every day. Latest figures show that the average self-storage market has eight facilities. This means that in any average market, seven other competitors are vying for your business. In this kind of atmosphere, smart owners are continually in search of new ways to ensure success. Certainly ...

I knew it was going to happen. It was Christmas Eve, and I went into the office to get caught up. Something also told me we’d be getting a call (or several) from a client facility, where there’d be an anxious renter facing a lockout situation. It happens frequently: Someone forgets to pay rent, the manager eventually locks the delinquent ...