How to Get Reviews for Your Self Storage Facility

Reviews are a vital part of your online marketing. Just like traditional word-of-mouth, your customers trust the opinion of their peers far more than they trust any marketing you could put out.

On top of that, Google reviews are a huge ranking factor for local SEO! If you're struggling to get your Google Business Profile in front of customers, a lack of reviews could be the reason.

But how do you get reviews? More importantly, how do you get good reviews?

The secret to getting large numbers of Google reviews isn't actually that secret.

You just have to ask!

In this video, Tommy interviews Heather McCombs of Spacebox Storage on how her team managed to get 100 new reviews in only 16 days!

How Do I Get Google Reviews for My Storage Facility?

Here are a few ways to maximize your Google reviews!

• Ask! The first and best way to get a good Google review is to ask your customer in person to leave you one. "Hey, could you leave a review on Google? It would really help me out!"
• Make it easy. Use a QR code that they can simply point their phone at. Make a link to review your facility that you can send to your customers.
• Text them. People are more likely to open a text than an email, especially if the message is short, digestible, and you don't abuse texting. 
• Put links on your website and in your business emails. Don't spam them, don't badger them, but be sure that anyone who wants to leave a review only needs a few clicks to do so!
• Incentivize your managers! Heather offered large cash rewards to any manager who got 100 new reviews between September and the end of the year. Not only did one of her managers (shoutout Ms. Bobbie!) get that number in just 16 days, but another manager hit the same number in just 40 days.

A 5-star review can be worth hundreds to your self storage marketing budget!

In this article, we’ll look at how online reviews impact your self storage business and share some ways to collect online reviews for your self storage business.

How Online Reviews Impact Your Self Storage Business

Online reviews are important because they offer social proof that your facility is worthwhile. 

“Social proof” is a term coined by Robert Cialdini to describe the psychological and social phenomenon in which people copy the actions of others in the belief that, if others are doing it, it must be the correct behavior. (The term is also known as “informational social influence.”)

In marketing, establishing social proof often takes the form of sharing positive reviews and customer testimonials. By sharing online reviews on your website and platforms such as Google Business Profile and Facebook, you can:

• Quickly build trust with potential customers
• Drive more traffic to your website
• Improve your local SEO (search engine optimization).

Having reviews on your Google Business Profile improves your search ranking and increases your local SEO—thereby driving more traffic to your website.

Because self storage is a hyperlocal business (i.e., most customers are located within a few miles of your facility), improving your local SEO directly increases your bottom line. In other words,  Google reviews affect your storage unit occupancy rates. 

To effectively use online reviews, you should feature them prominently on your website and actively manage your listings wherever online reviews appear, such as Google Business Profile, Yelp, Facebook, and self-storage online marketplaces such as Sparefoot.com and Selfstorage.com.

Collecting Online Reviews for Your Self Storage Business

Here are a few methods you can use to collect online reviews for your self storage business. 

• Ask! The easiest and most effective way to get reviews is to ask your customers. Whenever you're having a good interaction, make sure you've got a quick and easy way to ask for a review. One of the pro managers with Spacebox uses a QR code to her review link that she just carries around.
• Include a link to review your Google Business Profile on all communications with your customers (including emails, texts, and bills), along with a short invitation to review your facility.
• Have a link to a review site on your website. Make sure the link takes the user directly to the place where they can leave a review. The simpler you make it, the more likely it is that people will complete a review.
• Use social media to invite your tenants to leave a review for your facility.
• When dealing with customers in person, invite them to review your facility. Giving them a postcard with a link or QR code to a review site will help prompt them to complete this task.

The majority of people will leave a review if asked, so don’t hesitate! The easier you can make the process, the more reviews you'll get. 

Although asking customers to leave a review for your facility is a best practice, never pay for reviews. Paying for reviews can cause credibility problems in the long run and is never recommended.

The best way to ensure that you get positive reviews is to provide good customer service and an easy and stress-free customer experience.

Tips for Managing Your Self Storage Online Reviews

Getting reviews is the most important piece, but you're not done once you've got them. Here are a few best practices for managing online reviews for your self storage facility.

• Respond to reviews. Make it a habit to respond to all online reviews (both positive and negative). Businesses that do so are perceived as being attentive, engaged with customers, and concerned about customer service. It also helps to minimize the damage of any negative reviews. Your responses don’t need to be long. A simple “Thank you for your feedback” is enough.
  
  
• Learn how to respond to negative reviews. Negative reviews are inevitable. However, learning how to respond to bad reviews will mitigate the effects of such reviews and may lead to repeat business. Research has shown that almost 70% of unhappy customers will give a business another chance after receiving a helpful response to a negative review. 
  
  You can also bury bad reviews by getting more new good reviews!
  
  
• Be consistent. Because customers value recent reviews more than older reviews, consistently ask for reviews from your customers. Continually adding reviews will help potential customers (and Google!) take notice of your facility.
  
  
• Use information from reviews to improve your self storage facility. Be sure to use the information provided in online reviews to improve your facility and customer service. After all, if multiple customers are complaining about the same thing, it highlights an area that you need to work on. 

Summary

Reviews are a critical piece of your marketing strategy because they offer social proof that your self storage facility is worth using. Online reviews—particularly on your Google Business Profile—can also improve your local SEO and drive more traffic to your website. 

To collect reviews, the best method is to simply ask your customers. This can be done via links on your customer communications and social media platforms and by asking them during in-person interactions. To be effective, this must be done consistently to keep a regular flow of reviews coming your way.

Finally, harness the full power of your online reviews by responding to all reviews, learning to effectively respond to negative reviews, and using the information gleaned from reviews to improve your self storage facility.

To read more about my favorite StoragePug features, take a look at

• [2024] Ranking the Top 19 Self Storage Marketing Tactics
• How Much Are Google Reviews Worth?
• How to Create Google Review Links.
  

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