eKourier Jan 2019

REVIEWS

Tour de Storage Con’t...

“Outstanding service from the staff at Kennards Self Storage at Moore Park. Yesterday I placed an order online for boxes and packing materials, and they rang me within about two minutes to say it was ready for me to collect even though the website says to allow four hours before you collect. Same thing today when I needed to top up. And when I got home and realised I’d be given much less bubble wrap than I paid for, they immediately got in the car and drove to my house to give me what I’d paid for, because I didn’t have time to go back and get it. Brilliant.“ “Absolute fantastic customer service at Croydon Park! So helpful, kind and fun. Great pricing compared to other services I’ve used in the past. I highly recommend.” “Our first delivery of Lions Christmas Cakes have arrived at Kennards Self Storage Newstead. They are safe, dry, cool and mice free. The 24 hour access, large elevators and plenty of available trolleys made it easy for our volunteer members to collate cake orders, thanks for your support Kennards Self Storage.” “Awesome customer service at North Melbourne. Azam knows his centre very well and is a pleasure to deal with.” Customer Feedback HOT TIPS With the growth of Digital Agreements, you can check your Digital Agreements for licences and completed Easy Pay Agreements by printing your On Site Systems Review document from KOSMO. This will list all of your Agreements that are digital separately to paper. Is it time to reduce your folders with less paper Agreements, maybe a clean up of your folders is also possible.

historical data, current pipe line and closing data, combined with length of stay, customer profile and type of unit to name some of the ingredients that go into the final pricing suggestion. This was of interest for us, with 90 locations and 60,000 storage spaces our own dynamic pricing is becoming more challenging. After the conference we then travelled to Buffalo, New York State to spend time with Life Storage a large public REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) operating over 700 storage locations in 28 states across the US. Average occupancy 91.8% across same store. Our day with Life Storage included time with each of the different departments, executive level, marketing, pricing and the call centre. It’s interesting that Life Storage has just recently launched their own version of Rent Now digital sign ups that they are in the process of rolling out across their 700 locations. After Storage Life we then travelled west to Columbia Missouri, to meet with StorageMart a privately owned storage operator with over 200 locations across the US, Canada and the UK. Again, we spent time with each of their different departments. StorageMart are an innovative organisation never resting, always testing and trying new initiatives and ideas to a point that the idea may have a negative impact on business. It’s a competitive industry and they are

continually looking for that competitive edge, that point of difference that will see them out perform their peers. This makes them unique in my view. Then finally onto our last destina- tion going west again to Glendale Los Angeles, to spend time once again with Public Storage the behemoth of the large Storage REIT’s with close to 2,500 locations across 38 states in the US. Public Storage also have an impressive average occupancy in the low to mid 90’s across the group. We spent time with their new CEO, CFO and Revenue Manager. With a tour of their recently developed facility in Gardina California. The facility opened in February 2018 with an impressive 1,200 storage spaces. We are always amazed and grateful at how generous the operators are with the information and time they give to us each time we visit. The learnings we get help shape and improve our own business so that we may remain a successful self storage leader in our own market. The relationships forged on these visits become an ongoing resource for feedback and advice as we refine and improve our own systems and processes. Darren Marshall General Manager

9 Kennards Kourier Jan 2019