You Never Know If That Customer Is A Shopper
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What are we here to do? What is your job function when you come into work and get yourself ready for the day that is ahead of you? When you put on your combat shoes and strap up your helmet to go to war, do you truly know what is expected of you out there on the battlefield? In self storage, mostly everyone understands what they are there to do, but do they decide to execute it. How can we ensure that what we expect as property owners is being executed out there with all of the customers that enter our building? The best thing out there currently is secret shopping.
Secret shopping helps address some of the things that bother most people in the self storage world. One of them is the lack of personalized service. Some managers out there in the self storage world just treat callers and customers as if they are just a transaction. The caller asks for a price and then their wishes are met. We give them the price. Unfortunately, that is usually the end of the call. Many of us reading this blog might not know a lot about self storage, but we do not know the ins and outs of all business we need to do. With secret shopping, we can ensure that our associates are taking care of the caller completely. This is the best way to know what is truly being said in the interactions between our managers and the clients we want to turn into renters. All associates should step in to the customers shoes when trying to serve them. How would you like to be treated when you are shopping for something that you are in need of?
With secret shopping, we get the unique opportunity to try to understand what the caller or customer truly wants and we can see what else we need to do to get more clients into our rental facility. Take a step back. How do you like to be treated when you enter a customer service environment when you know someone is going to try to sell you something? Most would say they like to be treated as if they are a person wherever they go. They want to feel that their needs are different from the next person. Now most people despise the over the top, wishy washy, hey would like you a drink of water sales environments. On that note, it still makes most feel good that someone is at least trying to be different. Most people do not visit places that do not even try to be helpful. Sometimes, as customers, we are forced to go to those non-helpful places to get our needs satisfied. You do not want to be that self storage facility that people just go to because they have to. You should want your environment to be inviting.
With most environments, it is hard for most managers to see how their employees are treating the customers. With secret shopping, it allows us to get a true gage how the customer is served. To all the self storage managers out there, next time you are on the phone or a customer walks in, just think about how you want to be treated. Do not let the last customer who was angry deter you from better servicing the next. Do not let what is going on at home hinder you from blowing the next customers socks off with your service. You can never know if you are talking to a secret shopping agent who is evaluating your level of customer service. Put yourself in their shoes, how do you want to be treated if you walked through the doors of a self storage facility?
November 2007 Blog Archive
Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.
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