eKourier Oct 2019

FEATURE

U.S SELF STORAGE CONFERENCE 2019 Darren Marshall and I attended the U.S Self Storage Association’s (SSA) conference from the third of September to the sixth September in Las Vegas. The U.S SSA conference is held twice a year, a massive event for the self storage industry. Previously the conference was held at Caesar’s Palace, but with an increase in attendance the event was moved to a new home at the MGM Grand, the only hotel that can accommodate the increased numbers.

Most of the operators in the U.S have adopted centralised pricing, the same direction Kennards will be taking with Prorize. As mentioned earlier we were amazed at the level of occupancy achieved at centres with an average occupancy consistently over 90%. It was great to hear from the Teams that their focus on great customer service and creating raving fans can be the deciding factor for a customer when they are choosing who to store with in a tight competitive market. Cubesmart had an interesting approach to their reservations with an aggres- sive follow up process called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. In short, reservations are responded to within the first 30 minutes. On the first day there are 5 touch points to the customer. • Phone call to customer, if no answer leave a message. • Call again, if no answer no message is left. • Call again, if no answer no message is left. • Call again, if no answer no message is left. • Send an email. These steps are repeated the next day but only with 4 touch points and so on. Visits like this keep our business in touch with the industry and new innova- tions that are coming through. Our decision to move to a centralised pricing system using a technology platform that includes machine learning has been evolving over recent visits to the U.S. Although we spent all our time in the hotel/conference, Vegas was an eye opener! #whathappensinvegasstaysinvegas Tony Vuong General Manager of Operations

A ttending the US Conference is always a great educational event, as it offers us the opportunity to understand what is happening in the largest storage market in the world generating ideas we can adopt back home in our business. A quick rundown on the numbers: just over 3,000 attendees, 300 vendor stands in the trade show, approxi- mately 50,000 storage centres across the U.S. As in comparison to the Australian conference with 400 attendees, 30 vendor stands and approximately 3,000 storage centres across Australia. It was said that there are more storage centres in the U.S than McDonalds stores. To say this is a huge event is an understatement. We had the opportu- nity to hear from the CEO’s of a few of the major operators including Ron Havner (Public Storage), David Rogers (Life Storage) and Mike Burnam (Storagemart) to name a few. There are many similarities when we compare the U.S market versus the Australian market. The industry has been challenged with the increase in

new supply coming into the market, putting pressure on existing centres to maintain occupancy and continue income growth. The centres operate with a similar model of one Centre Manager and one Assistant Manager. Customer service is a main focus, especially follow ups to drive conver- sion being the key ingredient to achieving an average 92% group occupancy across the major operators. Some key take aways; although automation is an increasing techno- logical advantage, the human touch is still critical in the journey of turning potential customers into a storer. Google Reviews was also a hot topic with consumers basing their decisions to transact with a business on the reviews and the businesses response to those reviews. We also had the opportunity to visit two large operators in Los Angeles, Cube Smart (www.cubesmart.com) and Storquest (www.storquest. com). Spending time with their Team which included Revenue Managers, Property buyers, Operations Managers and Team Members.

4 Kennards Kourier Oct 2019