Properly using self storage software will increase your productivity and improve your customer experience.
Using things such as tenant management software will enhance your self storage business in many ways. It will help you keep better records, more easily access your records, automate time-consuming tasks, and make your customers happier overall at every stage. Let’s take a look at how you can use tenant management software to level up your self storage tenant management game.
There are lots of ways to track your relationship with your tenants.
For example, you could use analog methods. These are methods such as filing cabinets stuffed full of leases, receipts, and other documentation.
When it comes to efficiently organizing your tenant information, tracking your communications, and being able to map out everything you know about them, there is also another powerful tool at your disposal: tenant management software.
Self storage tenant management software is akin to a self storage CRM (or customer relationship manager). Its functionality far exceeds that of your average CRM, but it still accomplishes the same tasks and more: helping you improve your self storage customer experience.
The prime example of software with tenant management capabilities is your self storage property management software. Something you likely already have can be used to manage all of that information about your tenants and more.
The advantage of using tenant management software over analog methods is that you are able to organize and access information much more easily and quickly. You also save on storage space in the office, as you no longer need to have filing cabinets and space to store them.
Let’s look at some of the things you can do to level up your tenant management procedures using self storage software.
You can use self storage software to help you manage (and convert) your leads to get more rentals.
Before a self storage customer becomes a tenant, they’re a lead. You probably know what a lead is: someone who got on your radar by showing interest in your business.
Maybe they called in, or maybe they poked around on your website—one way or another, you have reason to believe they are interested in renting a storage unit.
Self storage customers move fast once they start looking around. They might consider their need for self storage months in advance, but typically they become a lead much more last minute.
To know how tenant management software can help you manage these leads, let’s first look at what managing a lead means:
When it comes to lead management, that’s really the bulk of it.
So how can self storage software make these tasks easier?
The list goes on, but these are some of the major benefits of tenant management software when it comes to managing leads. These will also depend on your chosen software, as not all self storage software includes the same functionality.
Many of these things can also be done via analog methods, but the accuracy and efficiency offered by tenant management software are impossible to ignore.
Pug Pro Tip: Properly utilizing tenant management software—including properly training your managers and other key staff on the software—can help you convert more leads by making sure they don’t slip away to a competitor before you can get in touch with them. It can also help you easily keep track of the rare lead that doesn’t intend to rent quite yet, setting reminders and making notes on their record.
The world is becoming contactless.
You may want to make sure that you meet a potential tenant before you let them move in. That’s entirely fair and up to your business practices. However, even if that’s your standard procedure, you probably want to make sure your customers can complete the rental process and access their documents digitally.
Tenant management software helps make these processes easier in key ways.
Most of this software will have ways to upload documents—even physical documents you have scanned—and attach them to client records.
Your PMS will also usually automate processes such as assigning gate codes, sending welcome emails or texts, and other steps for getting your new tenant started. So even if you don't opt into contactless self storage, you can still get a bit of extra juice out of your self storage software by automating parts of the process.
In an industry where only one or two people are typically on the clock at a given time, these automated processes help save precious time.
And with email and text tracking available in some software, you can even manually check to ensure the processes are completed without a hitch if you’re the type of person that likes a little more oversight.
Pug Pro Tip: These days, customers are growing much more accustomed to receiving texts from the companies they do business with. Setting up your tenant management software to send information like unit number, gate code, and even a nice welcome message can make a positive impact on your self storage customer’s experience.
Surely just about everyone is familiar with autopay as a concept, and most self storage facilities incorporate it these days.
Still, there are ways that you can leverage self storage software to improve your customer experience AND make your own business more efficient in the process.
How do you use software to improve your customers’ experiences, run your business more efficiently, and increase the on-time rate of payments facility-wide?
Communication.
That’s right, communicate with your tenants! Send them reminders via email and text, and let them know that a payment is due soon. Make this task easier on yourself using automated communications from your tenant management software to do it!
Consumers are checking their personal email accounts upwards of 15 times a day on average. Texting is an even better avenue of notification, especially with 97% of Americans now owning a mobile phone as of 2021. This makes both of these methods a great way to reach out—automatically—to alert your self storage tenants of their upcoming bills.
People are busier than ever, with more bills and life events to juggle than ever, and these reminders help!
Even for tenants on autopay, these reminders reduce failed payments due to bad card information or insufficient funds.
Pug Pro Tip: Some property management software allows you greater oversight of autopay than others. If you’re the type of person that likes more manual control of these processes but still wants to take advantage of autopay, make sure to double-check how the software handles autopay first!
Be honest: How well do you really know your tenants?
Maybe you know some of them pretty well. Maybe you know which ones are current or not and which ones have been troublemakers. But how well do you keep track of your relationship with them and with your tenants at large?
One of the best ways to give your customer a great customer service experience is just by making them feel seen and remembered.
Level up your customer service skills by using tenant management software to track your relationship.
You’ve got countless customers that come through your gate over the course of your business, and with the right software you can keep up with them all using customer profiles and detailed notes.
Make a note in your self storage software about the new job your tenant told you about today. In two months, that could be just the information you or another member of your team needs to turn a regular phone call into an A+ customer experience by bringing it back up and asking how it’s going!
This record-keeping—made much easier to both record, organize, and access with the use of tenant management software—also helps in more practical ways.
Having detailed records of contact between your office and the tenant, their payment history, and other details can prove critical if questions or concerns ever arise.
Pug Pro Tip: This one’s a Pro Tip from Trish at A Storage House to help you enhance your customer service game: Keep track of important annual dates for your customer (such as birthdays and anniversaries) and also make note of things like losses in the family. Using all of this information, add a personal touch to your relationship by sending birthday messages, condolences, and so forth!
A good tenant management software (or CRM) can help you make more revenue out of customers that are leaving.
That’s right. It’ll help you get MORE money out of tenants that are no longer tenants.
How does it do that?
There are two ways: increased efficiency and an improved customer experience.
We all know the adage that time is money, and there is some truth to it. The more time you or your team spend doing tasks that could be automated, the less time you have to spend on tasks that can’t be automated.
That one may seem obvious, but let’s look at how you can use a move-out (and your self storage software) to improve your customer experience.
According to SmartSurvey research, a happy customer is likely to generate up to 14 times the revenue a dissatisfied customer would due to their referral rate (versus a dissatisfied customer warning potential customers away from you).
That means that understanding how your customers view your service is an essential part of maximizing your profits.
So how does self storage software help you improve your customer experience, and how does that relate to move-outs?
Well, to start, you already know how the automation offered by tenant management software can improve your customer experience directly with things like welcome texts and payment reminders. On the back end, that same automation allows you to set up messages for outgoing customers.
You can use these texts and emails—sent to customers that are moving out or have finished moving out already—to ask for reviews and send customer surveys.
Why is this important?
Because your customers will often not speak up about their experience. At least, not to you—they’ll be more than happy to tell their friends, coworkers, neighbors, and random cashiers about how unhappy they may have been.
Positive reviews will help build confidence in your business. Meanwhile, former customer surveys will help you improve your business for future tenants.
Pug Pro Tip: If your tenant management software affords you a way to do it, allow tenants to decide whether they’d prefer to be contacted by text or email, allowing you the best chance to reach them while also leading to happier tenants!
You probably already use software that helps you keep up with your tenants. For most people, this is going to be done through their property management software. Property management software is often robust and built with managing your units and tenants in mind.
The next step is to get the most out of that software you already have and enhance your business.
Level up by fully utilizing self storage software in a way that makes sense for your business and your self storage customers.
Here are some of my other favorite posts about running a self storage business!
At StoragePug, we build self storage websites that make it easy for new customers to find you and easy for them to rent from you.
