01 Aug 2023
I was once on a plane that was deplaned and scrapped just as we were about to take off. Yes, I said scrapped. Something had punctured the right wing of the plane in flight, and the hole was repaired with foam caulking, which was expanding and constricting in flight, causing more damage to the wing. Luckily a wary traveler noticed the bulging on the wing and was brave enough to stand up and demand an inspection. That plane had been in regular use with this shoddy repair for months before the day I walked onto it and directly back off.
Self storage customers think of their things as an extension of themselves. They are often storing belongings that have immense emotional and personal value to them. When a customer visits your storage facility, it’s critical to your success as a business owner that customers see you have kept up with facility maintenance. Just as you wouldn’t want to fly on a subpar airplane, you wouldn’t want to store your things at a subpar self-storage facility.
Self storage maintenance is much more complex than you’d assume as a layman or new self storage owner/operator. While maintenance for things like doors, hallways and roads around the facility are on everyone’s storage maintenance checklist or schedule, there are many other things to be maintained around a storage facility. Starting with the infrastructure that keeps your facility standing with the lights on, you must also carefully maintain equipment, facility furniture, plumbing, electrical, gates, security systems, your website or app…the list goes on and on.
Most self storage owners and operators keep a self storage maintenance checklist, where they track what facility maintenance is needed on the grounds. This could be in the form of a computer file, printed paper, whiteboard, chalkboard - there are a million ways owners track maintenance needs.
Automating your self storage maintenance tasks using technology is a proven way to make more money, and de-stress your daily life as a self storage facility owner or operator. The more streamlined and easy to access you make your facility, the more customer and staff retention you will see in the long run, in addition to the added ROI that comes with that type of loyalty.
For more information on ways technology can help you automate the management of your storage facility maintenance and general management, visit the ManageSpace Community
