GUEST BLOG: Innovating the Management of Multi-Facility Properties

Submitted to Investment Real Estate by Ajai Nair, CTO at Self Storage Manager

As a self storage owner or operator, you know the importance of selecting the right management software to run your property. There are a handful of known platforms in the industry to choose from. But let’s review the benefits of the Self Storage Manager platform and how it can help you as a self storage owner or operator.

About E-SoftSys
E-SoftSys, the developer of Self Storage Manager (SSM) and a Gold Microsoft Partner, is a technology leader for the self storage industry. At E-SoftSys, we are committed to delivering innovative, cost-effective, and value-added services that enable our clients to efficiently manage their self storage operations. We build long term strategic client relationships, built upon a foundation of delivering superior customer service. Our support team is available 24/7 to help meet any and all of our customers’ software needs. Our continued growth, primarily due to our existing client referrals, is proof of our client focused business model.

About Self Storage Manager (SSM)
SSM is the ideal software platform for both small and large multi-facility operators, allowing them to streamline their operations and increase efficiencies. We understand that our success depends on understanding client needs and meeting or exceeding client expectations, as well as integrating the latest technology into our software products. We are constantly looking for ways to enhance our product and service offerings and conduct regular customer surveys to obtain client feedback and input to help shape our product planning.

Key Highlights of Self Storage Manager:

• Has been implemented by many single and multi-facility companies in North America, South America, UK, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.
• Provides round the clock support to a global client base of over 1,000 sites spread across 19 countries.
• The first Self storage Property Management Software (PMS) to incorporate a full Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution, that has been continually enhanced over the past 14 years.
• Backed up by a company that has a large team of programmers, quality assurance analysts and support analysts with over 200 years of self storage industry experience.
• Proven data conversion experience:
  • Converted several hundred sites from other leading management software.
  • Large team dedicated for implementations and conversions.
  • Conversions done overnight with no downtime and detailed verification of the converted data is performed to ensure the converted data matches with the legacy system data.
  • Conversion of leases, letters and notices from the legacy system.
• If a client has unique needs, we are willing to customize the software to meet the specific needs of the client.

About SSM Cloud
SSM Cloud is our newest application for the self storage Industry. An ERP solution that leverages Microsoft’s Azure Cloud services; it will be a truly industry leading product. SSM Cloud has been designed as a responsive, user-friendly, web-based application, and will be the industry’s first Microservices Property Management System. This will enable SSM Cloud to support operators with single site, as well as those with over one thousand locations, and will be available to customers in Q1 of 2020.

Let’s look at an SSM Case Study of the company StoragePRO, a large operator that has been using Self Storage Manager for over 9 years.

About StoragePRO
StoragePRO provides safe and secure storage in a convenient, clean and professionally managed operation, that consistently exceeds our customer’s expectations. A leader in the storage industry for over 35 years, StoragePRO serves thousands of customers in California, Utah, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Texas and Colorado. We take your satisfaction seriously, with our 100% satisfaction guarantee. If you aren’t completely satisfied with your experience in the first 30 days of renting with us, we will give you your money back! This is just one of the many ways that StoragePRO sets a standard for management within the storage industry.

Self Storage Manager and StoragePRO:

• StoragePRO is one of the several large operator users of SSM.
• When they signed up for SSM over 9 years ago, StoragePRO, was managing 18 stores, and since then they have experienced a phenomenal growth of over 400%.
• The partnership between StoragePRO and SSM has been a win-win for both companies, as both companies have grown substantially in the past 9 years.
• Both companies have worked together to enhance the SSM product suite. These enhancements have not only been beneficial to them, but to all our clientele. A few examples include:
  • Revenue Management and Rent Increases: We have developed a number of enhancements to our revenue management module based on input from StoragePro.
  • Call Tracker: Substantial improvements have been implemented to our Call Tracker module leading to better tracking of incoming calls, measuring the effectiveness of various advertising campaigns and better utilization of marketing dollars.
  • e-CRM: Using our e-CRM module, StoragePRO has been able to significantly increase the number of leads they get at the call center. StoragePRO also processes hundreds of tenant payments at the call center each month using our e-CRM module.
  • Business Intelligence: StoragePRO has developed a sophisticated Business Intelligence and Analytics system using SSM data mine and QlikSense.
  • SSM Text Messenger: StoragePRO has been able to improve their collections system using our SSM Text Messenger module that sends automatic Payment Reminders and Past Due alerts. Tenants are able to click on the Click-to-Pay link in the SMS to make online payment or Click-to-Call to make a payment over the phone.
  • New Site Conversion: SSM has assisted StoragePRO in their phenomenal growth by performing overnight data conversion of the new sites they take over and providing the required assistance in performing rent increases, enabling online payments and auto pays for tenants and integrating the new sites with StoragePRO website to start taking inquires, reservations and rentals.

Owner Portal:

• We’ve worked with StoragePRO to develop an Owner Portal to provide property owners the ability to access weekly/monthly reports, as well as customized StoragePRO newsletters and other information.

According to Mark Riley, Director of New Business, StoragePRO:

“We have been using Self Storage Manager for over 9 years and found that there is always something new from E-SoftSys. E-SoftSys continues to provide enhancements and modules that assist in improving customer service, increase revenue and make the operations more efficient and less labor intensive.

We are using almost all of the functions and modules offered by SSM and it works very well for not just our store managers, but also Area Performance Managers, corporate accounting team, marketing team as well for all of the owners, whose properties StoragePRO manages. Their e-CRM system is great and extremely helpful for our call center to track the calls, create inquiries, reservations and take payments across all our sites. In the past 9 years we have converted a number of sites from various management software to SSM and all of the conversions have gone very smoothly. The SSM team performs data conversion overnight and the application will be up and running by next morning with all interfaces including the online interface.

As a large operator we are very pleased with the products and services E-SoftSys offers. E-SoftSys is indeed a one stop shop for all our software needs.”

Self Storage Manager is the one stop shop for all your self storage property operation needs.

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About the Author:

Ajai Nair, CTO, brings over 20 years of experience across diverse industries, such as Technology, Retail and Real Estate. His expertise includes leading organizations through transformational change and improving the overall customer experience. As CubeSmart’s Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Ajai was responsible for providing strategic direction and management for the company’s technology and systems directions, as well as building and managing an industry leading IT organization. Ajai manages the development of the SSM product. He is leading a team working to significantly enhance SSM and its product offerings. This will ensure that SSM meets the current and future requirements of small, mid-size and large storage operators. You can reach out to Ajai directly via email at sales@selfstoragemanager.com for more information.