Predictions for Storage Technology: Have the Forecasts Come True? And What’s Next?

As competition increases as a result of increasing saturation or decreased demand for self-storage, it will be important for owners/operators to have good and timely data on tenants, why they choose to rent from them and why they come back. An increasing emphasis will be put into tracking and analyzing this information using CRM and survey tools.

It is increasingly important to have a method to measure the return-on-investment of your marketing programs by tracking the effectiveness and use of the programs, and the length-of-stay data generated at the marketing campaign level.

One of the key competitive advantages to marketing in the self-storage market today is search-engine optimization. Larger self-storage operators are using search-engine optimization vendors to increase lead generation off organic and pay-per-click searches. This will become more competitive and used by more operators. It may also shift marketing dollars from traditional Yellow Pages to websites and search optimization.

Another important trend is the use of self-storage call centers to answer all calls. With call agents trained and focused on selling techniques, armed with real-time facility data and a call-agent application, they can make sure every call is answered quickly by a professional agent over extended hours.

I could make many more predictions, but I sense that my odds of getting them all right would start to decrease as I add more to the mix. Clearly, if I can do as well at predicting the future regarding the use of technology as some of my competitors did 10 years ago, we are in for an exciting time in self-storage.

With new self-storage development declining over the past few years, along with increasing competition, I predict owners/operators will adapt to change and successfully implement the technologies on the horizon will be the long-term winners in this unique and interesting industry.

Terry Bagley is the president and CEO of Centershift Inc. Centershift’s latest offerings, STORE Enterprise and STORE Advantage, are the next generation of STORE rental-management solution. The programs are Internet-based rental-management and point-of-sale software for growing, multiple-facility self-storage ownerships. For more information, call 801.303.1300; visit www.centershift.com.