Help Me Please!

I always find it funny that people come in to my store, buy all this complicated, expensive product, and then want to hook it up themselves. We always offer the customer the option of letting us hook everything up for them, for a price. I know if I just paid a lot of money for a product, a little more money to ensure it was done property would seem like a wise choice. When the customer doesn’t pay for the service, it always seems like they call us back the same day screaming help me hook all this up. Then we spend what seems like hours on the phone. By then, it does not always go the right way.

I had an older gentleman walk in and we spent about two hours trying to figure out what exactly he wanted his experience to be. He ended up wanting to have a couple of his TV’s mounted and some audio wired for him. His total ticket ended up being $12,000. The services to hang the two TV’s and wire the audio ended up being $1200. He stated that he didn’t want to bother hooking anything up and he wanted exceptional service. Right when it came time to pay, the gentlemen said that he would get it all done himself and he would call us if he needed our help.

Well unfortunately, he did need our help. He attempted to have the TV hung above his fireplace without our help and the TV fell off the wall hitting the floor. To ad insult to injury, he hurt his back hanging the TV. We were not able to do much of anything for him, except for sell him a new one and offer to have it installed. The thing is, if we had installed it and it fell off the wall, we would have replaced the TV.

While evaluating self storage managers talking to customers, many of them offer some type of service that could potentially make the caller’s storing needs a lot easier.  I have heard anything from a free truck and driver (which would help them load their belongings) to such services as dropping off a mobile storage unit for the caller to load their belongings into and then the company will come to pick it up. Some of the services provided may cost money, but the benefits should far out weigh the money spent.

So to all self storage owners/managers, make sure that whoever answers the phone informs each customer about the services they provide. We are unable to read our customers’ minds, but most customers are screaming help me in their heads. We just have to find out what service would silence those cries.

Written by Joel Little

Thanks for reading our property management blog. We know offer sales training management to the self storage industry.

Visit our Self Storage Pod Cast.

Are you moving to Chicago, Illinois? Visit our partners at Chicago, Illinois moving information center.

Rent storage at 6401 3rd St, Stock Island, Key West, FL 33040

Find your next car storage, boat storage or self storage at your StorageConcierge – Your premier national and local self storage search engine and free quote provider.

Tweet This Post 

Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

View Sarah Little, Blog Editor's Profile      Subscribe via RSS