eKourier Jan 2017

FEATURES

USA Study Tour

through customer Apps!

We sat through several sessions detailing the future of pricing management and online marketing initiatives. Some interesting tid-bits from the confer- ence included; - The continued shift in customers using online features through the website and the importance of keeping the experience simple, intuitive and friendly. - Use of mobile devices for searching, booking, managing accounts etc is skyrocketing hence the increasing emphasis we put on your Google Places pages. - Mystery shoppers in the USA market frequently shop competitors, test website services and take photos or recordings to help Teams learn from their experiences. - Facebook has become the modern ‘customer service line’ for sending complaints or enquiries. - Big data in population trends and demographics is helping the storage industry choose and target better locations for new sites. - We participated in powerful discus- sions about how the American industry battles being commoditised and the local operators striving to create differences among their brands so they don’t end up competing on the lowest discount rate. Something we are all too aware of here, as competitors fight for airtime on the internet. - A famous, former FBI cyber cop taught us about internet security. CEO Spencer Kirk, Chairman of the Board Ken Woolley and Senior Director of Operations David Decker from Extra Space with 1,400+ properties presented their perspective on successful strategies within the industry. It was great to compare much of what we do here at KSS to the US. Whilst there is always lots to learn we can be very proud of the strength of our branding, service, systems and processes and in particular our culture and ownership. The American industry had some similari- ties to ours with many operators owning 1 – 4 properties within one local area. There was a relatively large gulf between them and the larger players like Extra Space,

E very couple of years a few of us take the opportunity to visit the USA and study the storage industry. With a population ten times our own the American Self Storage market is signifi- cantly larger. Besides having great economies of scale the industry is also better established offering a great learning platform for us Aussies.

to share ideas and see how we might do things better here.

Last year Sam, Anthony and I flew over and began the tour with five days at the Self Storage Association Conference in Las Vegas, where we experienced the latest and greatest in trends, software, systems and offers.

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Whilst there is always lots to learn we can be very proud of the strength of our branding, service, systems and processes and in particular our culture and ownership

This allows them to do things that we might only dream of doing. At the same time trends like those on the internet and customer buying patterns all influence how their Self Storage marketing is evolving. Many new products are consequently created for the American industry. We go over there with the view that we may find ideas suited for us that if we were to develop them alone, the costs would have been prohibitive. They have the numbers and opportunity to test sections of their market with new processes, products and services then compare the results. It’s our chance to learn from what they have done,

‘ For those of you that have been to Vegas before, you’ll understand when we say some of us never saw daylight for five days! Not real daylight anyway. Seriously though the sessions this year had a lot that we could learn from. From a personal perspective, this year seemed to be a turning point where many aspects of the industry and technology have matured. Products that were ideas a few years ago have now been developed and are available to use. Such as vendors like StorMan in competition, electronic locks and integration of online accounts, many linking to Team Member phones or

14 Kennards Kourier Jan 2017