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A self-storage mystery shop can be a helpful tool for owners seeking insights into their company. In an industry that often struggles with occupancy fluctuations, security issues, and liability concerns, it’s essential to know the facts about your self-storage business. When implemented, these programs can help you understand your customers’ experience with not only your own business but also your competitors.
This helpful feedback can enlighten you about customer preferences, your operational strengths, and what needs refining. Further, a proactive business owner seeking honest feedback can build a strong company that can better retain customers and maintain long-term growth. Are you looking to be that person?
Essentially, a mystery shop program is an evaluation completed by a trained shopper to review various aspects of your business. Your self-storage mystery shopper will give you an unbiased perspective and provide actionable data to implement adjustments or changes as needed.
Depending on your program, they might follow an industry-specific questionnaire or one that you create with specific goals in mind. For example, you might be interested in seeing how your staff handles your business when you’re not around. Alternatively, you might be concerned with finding operational gaps or getting a data comparison of your competition.
There are a few options to consider when setting up an evaluation. Specifically, you can hire a company that specializes in a self-storage mystery shop program. Otherwise, you can take a DIY approach and design a customized program yourself.
It’s not new information that consumer demand for self-storage fluctuates. For example, you might have a problem gaining—and retaining—new customers, or have more than you can handle. On the other hand, you might experience security concerns, liability issues, or unexpected compliance challenges.
These concerns can hurt your revenue and brand integrity. Thus, a self-storage mystery shop can help you identify these problems and give you a plan for a solution.
Assessing the customer journey of your business is one of the first ways your self-storage mystery shop evaluator can benefit you. Their highly-trained observation skills can reveal your patrons' experience, from first impressions to completing a self-storage contract.
Your mystery shopper will review several aspects of your self-storage company:
So, when potential customers perceive your business positively, you’ll start the foundation for a strong partnership. In contrast, if prospective buyers have a negative experience, your mystery shopper can give you insights into the issues and how to improve those concerns. These business relationships are essential for long-term business success, which in turn, will help with your bottom line.
Another assessment that your self-storage mystery shop evaluator can do for you is to check facility conditions. Of course, the needs of the potential customers approaching your business for storage will vary—from temperature control and unit size to security and amenities. Additionally, people looking to use your self-storage facilities must feel confident that their items will be kept in good condition while stored. As such, the conditions of your facility are critical to keep in check.
Feedback from your self-storage mystery shop can reveal numerous insights regarding your location:
The physical environment plays a critical role in customer satisfaction and decision-making. When your clients are comfortable with your location and offerings, you will likely earn their business. What’s more, there’s a higher chance your clients will refer your self-storage business to others.
Thirdly, a self-storage mystery shop can be used to harness key insights into your direct competitors and industry standards. Savvy business owners look into their competition to see how they compare, and to gain an advantage in the industry. Interestingly, modern customers have higher expectations than those of the past and expect top-quality services. By implementing a competitive analysis, you’ll gain information and strategies to help improve your overall business model.
Your self-storage mystery shop feedback may include the following pieces of feedback to help your business in this area:
Overall, this self-storage mystery shop option can help you understand your position on the market. In sum, gaining detailed feedback allows you to refine your processes and offerings to beat the competition.
Your self-storage mystery shop analyst can review your reputation and presence online and in person. When you’re looking to stand out against other companies, having a trustworthy and recognizable brand can give you an edge. As mentioned above, customers have higher expectations, and earning their trust is vital. So, by understanding how potential customers perceive your business, you can strengthen your position in the self-storage market.
Insights gained from your mystery shop program include various details of your company:
Thus, with these valuable insights on how consumers view your brand, you can learn where you’re succeeding and what could benefit from refinement. You’ll be able to further strengthen your reputation and enhance loyalty with current and potential customers.
Finally, another self-storage mystery shop assessment focus can be to assess the abilities of your staff members. It’s critical that your employees conduct business on your behalf with the expected industry standards. Ideally, current and potential customers interacting with your team members should be a positive and informative experience.
While this is not an exhaustive list, your self-storage mystery shop can evaluate some of the following factors:
If you sense that your customers are not receiving the expected service or want to ensure your brand integrity, a self-storage mystery shop will give you answers. Moreover, with the help of this valuable feedback, you can improve your business with better customer satisfaction and increased trust.
While it’s undoubtedly helpful to conduct a self-storage mystery shop, there are several reasons why it might not make sense. Although this isn’t a complete list of reasons, they might help you decide if a mystery shop is right for you.
Evaluating your self-storage business comes at an additional cost to your usual spending. Even worse, some programs might even require you to commit to a contract for a specific period of time. Of course, with the fluctuating nature of your industry, it might be challenging to commit a large portion of your budget to gaining customer insights. It’s essential to weigh your options and feel confident that this feedback is worth the price.
One key indicator of a healthy business is high customer satisfaction and retention. Surely, if you consistently have favorable feedback or your customers report they never have a bad experience, you might not need a mystery shop evaluation. Surprisingly, studies have shown that a healthy balance of negative and positive reviews actually adds credibility to your brand reputation. So unless you think your stash of positive reviews is too good to be true, you may not need a mystery shop.
Creating your own mystery shop evaluation gives you the benefit of customizing it precisely to your needs. After all, the idea behind a mystery shop is pretty simple—on paper, anyway. For example, you can follow these simple steps:
This might require several platforms or spreadsheets to accomplish, as well as any number of personnel and some administrative work. But if you’re ready to put in the effort, you can certainly conduct your own self-storage mystery shop.
Of course, if you feel like the time invested in taking the DIY approach isn’t going to produce the results you want… it might be time to find an alternative.
Hiring an agency to conduct self-storage mystery shop can be a cost-effective way to gather insightful feedback about your customers—without having to do the work yourself. CustomerOptix’s CX on Demand is an innovative program that gives you the benefits of a high-level evaluation at affordable rates for small business owners. As a matter of fact, you can create a completely custom program based on your needs in as little as 10 minutes.
Undoubtedly, this is a smart investment for any business leader looking to continually improve their practices and their CX.
A self-storage mystery shop provides valuable insights for business owners looking to improve their operations. In an industry faced with occupancy fluctuations and security concerns, understanding your customers’ experience is crucial. In short, the feedback gathered can highlight strengths, areas for improvement, and how you compare to competitors. So, with this knowledge, proactive owners can make informed decisions to boost customer retention and drive long-term success.
Ready to take your business to the next level?
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