busy times

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Welcome to the secret shopping blog, where we keep a diary of our experience in the world of secret shopping and mystery shopping.

It was been quite a crazy Wednesday here in the Secret Shopping Department. End of the month and the beginning of the month are really our busiest times. We are just across the hall from our Call Center and the phones had been blowing up all morning. Tron came over and asked us to help out for awhile. Sure enough lots of calls are coming through and we go into threshold many times. As we add more people, our percentage of answered calls goes up. Some calls are what we call “manager calls”. These are calls that are not rental inquiries, but current tenants needing the manager. Since we answer for properties across the US and some Canadian properties, we stay busy all day long. After awhile, the calls slow for a bit and I jump over to look at the new lead call backs that we do for a few clients. We actually make the call-back on people who were not willing or able to make a reservation, so we can make sure to get the person to the property to rent. I hesitate on calling a potential customer in California.

He had actually called the night before and had inquired about a storage unit. But now its only 7:30 am in California and I am thinking that I will wait another hour to try and contact him.

Now, I am back across the hall and trying to complete some projects for the day. Going through some calls to make into a CD, trying to write the blog, etc. I have to be back in the Call Center in a few more hours so this time is precious to get some loose ends tied up. The rest of the afternoon in the call center is busy also, an unexpected middle of the week busy time.

So busy that now it is Thursday and I am trying to finish yesterday’s blog. We had some special visitors today that came by for a tour of the offices. They are an established storage company and they are looking to us to provide them with help on their increasing their rentals. More specifically, the Call Center might be the help they are looking for to alleviate some of their call volume in their specific stores. Everyone is on their best behavior and the offices are looking great. They are ushered around and given the nickel tour. Hopefully it will be enough to get their business.

Now a couple of the end of the month evaluations I did today were curiously interesting. Same person, shopped twice, with the same response to an inquiry of storage rental. The person asked the shoppers both times if they could call the shopper back because they were busy in the office and wouldn’t be able to help them right now. This particular property has our Call Center to answer calls for them when they are busy. Rather then letting the call ring over to the Call Center, they chose to answer the call and tell the customer they were busy. Hmmm. If it had been a real caller, I would bet money that they went to the next company in the phone book.

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” WINSTON CHURCHILL

Thanks, Natalie

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.