Dave Grant, former CEO of Shurgaurd, drew the comparison between online self storage rentals and online hotel room reservations. He believes that self storage rentals will move more and more online much like hotel room reservations. I believe this forecast makes a lot of sense.
When was the last time when you shopped online for a hotel room you:
- found a prospective room online
- Called the hotel and asked questions,
- Went to the hotel to see a room
- Then filled out some paperwork so that you could sleep in the room
- Came back the next week to actually use the room
When it comes to hotel rooms, I just search online and find something that gets good reviews or is a brand I trust, check the rate, and make a reservation. I can see this happening more and more in storage, especially as operators get more internet savvy.
What would facilitate this transition? What can you do to get ahead of the curve and help potential customers move to a reservation over the internet after merely checking out your website? Here are some thoughts:
- Add more pictures to my facility website
- Add a virtual tour
- No, wait. Skip the virtual tour and grab my camcorder and walk through the property. Add some fade-ins and fade-out transitions and a voice-over narration and BAM! its ready for the web. (Thank you YouTube for lowering everyones expectations for production quality).
- Add a bunch of authentic testimonials and format them so that they look like the comments on travel sites.
- Link from my site to the reviews on sites like Yahoo! Yellowpages, Citysearch, Superpages, and Yelp.com.
- Even better would be to find a way to embed those reviews right into your facility website.
- Prominently display a badge on the site showing a. it's secure b. Your membership in the Self Storage Association c. your membership in the California Self Storage Association d. your membership in the BBB and d. your membership in the local chamber of commerce.
- Make as wild a guarantee of quality and satisfaction as possible to lower or eliminate the consumer's perceived risk of doing business with you.
What else would you do?
