Leveraging a Call Center to Streamline Self-Storage Management

CallPotential – What is it? How do we use it?

If you’ve ever purchased or built a self-storage facility, you know that sales are an integral part of your business. How you conduct sales, whether in person, over the phone, online or a combination of all three will determine your income, overhead, and profit.

If you have or have attempted to set up a call center, you know the process can be daunting and the upkeep is a full-time job. That’s why we rely on CallPotential’s cloud-based technology to collect calls, create new leads, process collections, and much more!

CallPotential’s capabilities are endless. As a self-storage owner or operator, you can control call flow, elevate customer experience, and have access to real-time data to ensure your tenants are satisfied with the rental and collections processes.

Why are call centers essential to remotely managed facilities?

If your facility is managed remotely, having a call center is critical to your success. To secure rentals and payments or answer questions, tenants will likely want the option to speak to a real person. Copper Storage Management offers a call center with access 12 hours a day/7 days a week making it easy and convenient for tenants to access their accounts and more. Some of the services CallPotential specializes in include centralized call operations, automated lead and collection management, AI-driven communication, and more.

Renting and Reserving Units

As a leading self-storage remote management company, our number one job is to rent and reserve units. A facility cannot grow, maintain, and thrive without a healthy influx of new tenants. With almost 200 remote facilities across the country, we must be able to rent to tenants, anytime, anywhere.

Without full-time onsite managers, we rely on our agents’ abilities to assist customers via phone, email and chat. Our call center is by far the most important of the three. CallPotential provides the infrastructure for which our Call Center operates. We can combine all our facilities into a single platform, where our agents can assist all facilities, even with differing property management software accounts. We create efficient call routes, where we can prioritize “sales” opportunities over “existing tenant” issues. Our Agents can complete 100% of the rental process utilizing CallPotential without having to log in to the PMS system.

Collections Management

All forms of management require efficient and consistent collection efforts. We strive to provide as many forms of communication as possible to lower our accounts receivables. Tenants have become increasingly picky about which forms of communication they will monitor and respond to. Our management services utilize texting, emails, and outbound calls to collect past dues. CallPotential allows us to mix automated collections and outbound calls from our agents. We set up a comprehensive communications schedule to reach past due tenants daily, utilizing at least one of these forms of communication. We are also able to utilize CallPotential’s payment IVR that directs past due tenants to a “pay your bill now” path before sending them to a live agent.

Customer Service

Another essential part of management is dealing with active tenant issues. We want to provide multiple contact points for our tenants to reach us. We were able to build a “service queue” that routes active tenants to agents that can assist with tenant needs. We can even transfer those tenants to Tier 2 Managers that help with more demanding issues, directly within CallPotential. Our Agents can leave notes and add helpful reminders to ensure we are following up with tenants promptly.

Operating Expenses

The biggest drive for remote management, or even a hybrid-management solution, is cost savings with operational expenses. As interest rates rise and lucrative deals become more difficult to find, it is more important than ever to find ways to increase value. Utilizing remote management and automated processes allows drastic savings across all types of facilities. Having managers working remotely to cover facilities all over the country allows us to significantly spread out payroll costs. This also allows us to eliminate many on-site supportive costs, like internet or phone systems. CallPotential is essential in allowing our agents and managers to perform all of the necessary tasks for managing remotely.

Industry averages versus Copper Storage Management Rates

– December 2022 – CSM had a Sales Conversion rate of 51.34%, compared to 26% industry standard

– December 2022 – CSM collected a total of $361,504.32 in payments within CallPotential

Other Ways to Maximize Efficiency

Serving the customer should be simple, and automation can support that. Chat services such as Swivl can help automate customer interactions by answering simple questions or connecting tenants to the correct person. Online rentals can also create a level of ease for the customer. They can easily make rental reservations at their convenience rather than waiting on hold or scheduling it during traditional working hours.

Conclusion

Copper Storage Management is working towards a remote call center solution for owners and operators nationwide. In the interim, listen to our latest webinar with CallPotential here. Copper Storage Management and CallPotential strive to offer best in class services to the self-storage industry.

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