It’s all about the letter “A”.

Welcome to the secret shopping blog, PhoneSmart’s diary of the mystery shopping and secret shopping world.

“A” can stand for Attitude. One of our goals in Secret Shopping Land is to help our clients understand their purpose in answering rental inquiries. What attitude should they have when they’re talking to potential renters? We believe that their goal should be to first determine what the caller is looking for in a storage facility or apartment home. The manager should come with an attitude of understanding so they know how best to help the caller. We encourage them to learn about the caller and their situation so that they might uncover other potential needs that can be met by storing with them. On our evaluations, we can’t stress enough how important it is to ask questions.
We have heard calls where the managers don’t ask a single question other than “How may I help you?” Then they proceed to tell the caller what they think they need to know without even attempting to find out. In our secret shopping experience, we have also heard calls where the manager asks several questions. However, none of them really get him any closer to helping the caller or getting any commitment from them to rent at his facility. We try to get across the importance of the right questions to ask so they are not wasting their time or the caller’s time.
Unfortunately, many people in need of storage don’t know exactly what questions to ask. We have heard calls where if the caller didn’t know what to ask for in size, they were denied service because the manager didn’t know how to help them.
The attitude is important because if the managers understand that sometimes their potential customers rely on them to be the experts in storage, they’ll step up to that responsibility. This shows those callers that they have reached someone who’s knowledgeable and cares for their needs. It builds trust and can really establish a good rapport with the caller.

“A” can also stand for Assume. You know what they say about people who assume… But sometimes it seems that some of our managers just can’t help themselves. As already mentioned, we have evaluated calls that were based purely on assumptions. This can be a big mistake to make. Not only can it upset the caller if the assumption is wrong, it can close huge doors of opportunity.
My brother was looking for an apartment and he had a list of places that he was interested in and that were in his price range. He called one place and asked for a one bedroom apartment. The leasing agent quickly told him that they only had 2 bedroom apartments available. My brother being new to apartment hunting thought that was that and ended the conversation not really knowing what else to do. Having done some research, I discovered that the property did have 1 bedroom apartments for rent, just not the day my brother called. This leasing agent missed out on a rental and sent my brother’s money somewhere else because he didn’t bother to ask when the apartment was needed. This simple question would have changed the entire course of the call.

-Laura

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

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