[ by Jade Evans, Storage West ]?
When it comes to the business of self-storage, the bottom line really is customer service, right?
If you aren?t focused on customer service, how can your current and potential customers be focused on you? In such a competitive industry, you have to be able to stand apart from the competition when it comes to how you treat your customers. Once you have that mastered, you can completely formulate an entire marketing campaign around what you have to offer to your potential tenants that the other facilities don?t. Here are a few tips to get you started.
Use Social Media to Your Advantage
Most businesses know by now that social media can be huge in terms of reaching more people than you can with just a website. Extend the power of your facility?s social media profiles by not only humanizing your brand, but being prompt and timely with interactions with fans.
Your social media profiles will allow you to let people know who?s behind the company. If you?re marketing your customer service, fans on these profiles (and potential tenants) can learn about the history of the company, see a photo of some of the workers helping someone move in, send you feedback, or leave a comment about your facility.
Good customer service extends to online etiquette as well, so be sure you respond to every comment or question that comes in through these outlets. People will begin to understand the human aspect of your brand and will be more likely to trust you in general.
Videos Go a Long Way
Aside from traditional commercial advertising on television, video content for your website and social media profiles in particular can go a long way in reaching real people and sending a more engaging message than text alone.
Take some time and put resources into hiring a production company who can film a short video for online advertising purposes that showcases the kind of customer service that your facility can provide. For example, Storage West recently launched an introductory video on their website that features an interview with the owner and testimonials from tenants who keep coming back:
A video such as this can showcase the people who work for you and the customers who are already happy with your service. This kind of interactive and informative content can greatly help potential tenants in their final decision of which storage facility to choose.
Word of Mouth
As with many other businesses, networking and the old-school ?word of mouth? marketing technique can do amazing things for your facility.
If you have happy existing customers that you know of, consider offering a 10% or 15% discount on a certain number of months of storage use for a referral. If you can please the customers that you already have and offer them a discount just to bring in more people with storage needs, you?ll make those tenants even happier.
You should also try to send some of your friendliest employees or executives to high-priority local (or larger) networking events. People at these kinds of events always remember friendly representatives of any company, so if your employees are the ones these other business people remember, your facility will be the one they turn to when they have storage needs.
Of course, a marketing strategy based on customer service starts with just that?actual customer service. Make sure your employees are friendly, knowledgeable and always wearing a smile. Tenants will want to keep coming back just to see some of the people that work at your facility when you have the right kind of service!
Jade Evans is a blogger with Storage West, a prominent West Coast storage facility with locations in California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas.
Image courtesy of csmonitor.com
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Guest bloggers at The Storage Facilitator come from diverse professional backgrounds and are experts in their fields. If you'd like to guest blog for us, email blogs@sparefoot.com.
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