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It is getting close to the end of the school year, and if you are a college student, you may be thinking about what you will do with your excess or unwanted possessions. These things tend to accumulate throughout the school year, whether you own, rent, or live in a dorm room on your school campus. Somehow, at the end of the semester or year, you look around and notice that you have many more belongings than you did at the beginning of the year! If you are graduating, and have to leave your dorm room or rental, or if you will be returning to school but have to find some place to live for the summer, you might want to consider shopping for self storage. This is an option that many college students find very convenient, especially for the summer months. Are you moving back home with your parents? Maybe you are going abroad for the summer. If you have graduated, you might not know what you will be doing at all yet. In all of these circumstances, shopping for self storage is a way to eliminate much of the clutter that seems to collect so easily during the college and dorm years, and clear your mind for what is to come.

Most self storage units are extremely easy to come by. Not only that, but they are very cheap as well. You will never have to worry about the safety of your items, as most companies offer very thorough security systems. If you want to doubly protect your items, you may wish to go shopping for a heavy padlock of your own to put on your unit. Also, take the easy precaution of putting your most valuable possessions toward the back of the unit. This makes them more difficult to get to in the rare chance of theft.

You lock your belongings in the unit, you keep the key, and most of the time you can return whenever you choose to retrieve or check on your possessions. Almost every town, whatever the size, will offer some type of self storage that will most likely meet your personal needs. You can go shopping on the Internet to see different locations for various companies.

If you happen to have larger things that need to be stored, such as water sports equipment or a car you may not want to use for the summer, many places have outside room for these types of things as well. 

If you happen to have items that are either delicate or valuable, you might want to go shopping for climate controlled units. These are now offered more and more at different companies. You do not want your items to become warped or ruined by extreme hot or cold weather.

There are several tips you might try to follow when storing your belongings. First of all, try to put everything in boxes that are a uniform size. This makes it easier to stack them, and makes better use of the space within your unit. Secondly, stack your boxes with the heaviest on the bottom, and the lightest on top. This way your lighter, perhaps more fragile, belongings will not get crushed. If you leave small walkways between the boxes or furniture that you are storing, this makes it simpler for you to make your way around within self storage unit, accessing items as needed. 

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December 2006 Total Quality Assurance Service Blog Archive

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Every secret shopping evaluator knows that having a good basic script is essential in any type of sales. This is especially true for anyone working in a call center selling self storage, and for two very good reasons. 
 
Reason number one, self storage is an intangible and not something that a customer can hold in their hand. It is not a red sweater that they can actually pick up and try on. Self storage is about the security and the peace of mind that comes when a customer needs to stow away their most prized possessions.
 
And reason number two, most people have never rented a self storage unit before. They know the color red, and how a sweater feels. But they have no clue about a rental unit. They might have heard of it, but more than likely they heard a horror story about a friend of a friend that had all of their stuff ruined by rodents. Now that they find themselves in a predicament where they will need to rent a unit they are pretty nervous about it.

Because of these reasons it is very important that the sales rep be able to explain all of the benefits of self storage to the caller, and fairly quickly since most customers are in a hurry when they use the telephone. A secret shopping evaluator knows that this is why having an excellent basic script is so important. It enables the telephone rep to convey all of the pertinent information, such as the convenient location, the great security and cleanliness, and the sized unit that would work best. As long as the script is followed then all of the essentials are covered with each and every call, and in a short amount of time. 

New employees need to have the script in their hand, to physically be able to look at it as they go through training. This is the best way for them to learn it, while at the same time help them to understand how it applies to their new job, as well as the importance of the script itself.

After a new employee has been around for a while, and has gained some confidence, they need to have the basic script nearby as a just in case kind of a tool. Just in case they get off track during a call, or just in case they feel a little uncomfortable with a particular customer, then they have the script as sort of a security blanket to help them get back on track. 

Seasoned veterans often think they know it all, that they have been doing this job so long they can do it in their sleep. The problem with this is that they can become complacent, and can develop some bad habits that they are not even aware of. This is why a secret shopping evaluator is so important. The evaluator can recommend to the experienced salesperson to dust off that old script and use it for a few days. Getting back to the basics is a great idea every now and again. 

A secret shopping evaluator listens to sales calls all day, and they know the importance of a good basic script. The secret shopping evaluator knows that after a rookie has learned the script, and the rest of their new job, that they should adjust the wording to fit their own personality. But no good salesperson ever wants to stray too far from the basic script. It is a very important tool that they need to use throughout their sales career.

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How does your facility or sales environment stand out from the rest? In the market place, today, this is a question that you have to ask yourself consistently. If you are not asking yourself this question on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis, then you might be falling behind the curve. Most businesses are constantly finding ways to stay in front of the curve. Anyone that deals in customer service needs to find innovative ways to satisfy their needs and have them come back to their place of business time and time again.

When you think of customer service, is there any one business that comes to mind? It is certain that there are many businesses associated with this term that are at the top of the charts and first on our minds. Have you ever gotten into that companys business to see what makes them tick? Why does their name come up first when you think about customer service? Some people, when they are focused, would go into that business or call and see how they are taken care of. They would take notes back to their own business and see what is different. They would do this often to ensure that they doing similar things as the company that was on top. The moment they stop looking at what their competition is doing, the will fall behind. Is there someone in your area that is doing well in your field that you can evaluate their business?

Who is at the top of the customer service world? Why are they there? There have been multiple studies around businesses evaluating the different customers that are coming into the building. They do exit interviews with them (interviewing them when they are about to leave their store) and they have them take online surveys. They ask questions about their experience during the sales presentation, etc. The key thing is now, what they do with all the data they collected. They take that data and form types of people they are having trouble with. They dig deep into those groups of people (could be age, sex, culture, lifestyle, income, etc.) and find out how to better serve them. That is the important part, being able to see where your trouble areas are and finding a way to make the biggest impact on their business. If you can truly see some kind of lift from your hard work in collecting client data, you will win big.

When your company profits and losses based on they level of customer service you provide, you have to be good at what you do. When potential clients walk into your building what kind of experience, will they receive? That is what you need to be at the forefront of your minds when trying to determine what you need to do to be at the top of the client development world.

Now it is up to you. What do you do from here on out. Do you become stagnate in your everyday routine in your workplace, or do you go out and make a difference? Clients are not always going to tell you what you need to do in order to take better care of them. Sometimes you will just have to roll up your sleeves and get dirty. The more work you do around client development and taking care of their needs, the better your company will be in terms of profits. 

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October 2007 Secret Shopping Blog Archive

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In our current state as a nation, it is becoming harder than ever to find job employment. This is a growing trend, and has been, over the past several years. The lack of people finding job employment who are looking for it is not limited to any age or income demographic. It seems that anyone who is looking for a decent job is really struggling to land one.

The questions America should be asking are Why is this happening? And what can be done about it? Both of these are hard questions to tackle. And, to make things worse, the answers may be even harder to swallow. For many, the easy answer is to lay the blame on the current presidential administration. Sure, why not? There is plenty of evidence to show the economy and job employment figures have taken a not-so-graceful nosedive over the past couple of years.

But if you dig more deeply, and do a little bit of research, you can see that job employment is not tied entirely to the economy or the presidents policies. So, one might query, what else has changed? The first thing that has is a certain group of people who are now flooding the job market on all income brackets. Since women have been gaining equality in the job market, the availability of jobs and career paths that once could be easily had by men are no longer certain. In the not-too-distant past, discrimination against women prevented them from holding any high positions within companies or corporations. But things are more equitable now, and with that shift in social views came a natural shift in the functioning of society.

Another reason people are having a harder time finding job employment is the saturation of new higher-education graduates. Again, our society is changing, and while in the past very few people could hold college degrees, they are becoming more commonplace everyday. Some researches have said that a college diploma is the new high school diploma. It seems that to have a chance with even the lowest level job, one must have a bachelor of something, regardless of what it is.

The problem with that approach by business owners and managers is they are cutting off a potentially valuable group of people. Having a degree is invaluable, for many reasons, but just because a person does not hold one should not immediately cut them out of the running for low-level positions.

While the aforementioned changes do present some challenges for the job-seeker, they also serve to benefit the U.S. in a few ways as well. The upsurge in women in the marketplace can undoubtedly be seen as a positive thing. To discriminate based on gender is an outdated and oppressive way of thinking. Disposing of harmful policies and social views is a great way to move culture forward. In addition to that, bringing women into the job market creates more healthy competition for job employment, and thereby should increase the overall quality of people holding top corporate and managerial positions.

The saturation of job seekers with degrees under their belts can also be seen as a very positive thing in its own right. The simple reason for that is, it means our society is becoming smarter and better educated as a whole. Ideally, this would mean we are on the track to becoming a more peaceful and productive nation, but only time will tell if that becomes true.

While the job market may be slim pickings at the moment, job seekers should not give up hope. Some of the causes of the scarce amount of jobs hold their own positive attributes, and could definitely help you in the long run.

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November 2007 Self Storage Blog Archive

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Lets get a show of hands of who loves great customer service. Wait a minute. We cannot see each other raising our hands, but it is safe to say that everyone will have their hands raised. Why do we expect great customer service from everywhere we go, but not always provide it in our self storage facilities? We as consumers have needs that we need fulfilled, as do the people that call us on the phone. Do we always volunteer all the information to the person helping us, or do we just answer whatever questions they ask us. With people on the phone, we have to dig deep sometimes to figure out their needs and then find a way to satisfy those customer service needs.

We all know there are a variety of reasons people are in need of storage. You should provide them great customer service based on their needs not what special you are running at the time. They might be declutering their house, moving from an apartment to a house, storing business documents, etc. It is up to us to determine that and then find a storage solution that would benefit them the best. With someone who is attempting to sell their house within two weeks, would they need information on how they can save money by renting for three to six months? Probably not, but will that same customer like the idea of being prorated for the days they use so they do not have to pay for the full month? Yes. Would the business customer who needs to store business documents like to know how they can save money towards their bottom line if they store for a year? Absolutely. What customer would love the idea of paying one dollar for a week (some companies run a one dollar move in special) so they can transition their belongings from one house to another? There probably is not one person that would not. Your level of customer service is going to mean the world to this customer. The person who can give them the best customer service by satisfying their needs will gain the customers business.

Good customer service is different to many people. What you think a high level of service is not the same as your competitor. It is about what the customer thinks. Take the time to think about the last time you got great customer service. What was so great about it? Why are you thinking about going back? Would you tell your friends about this service you received and why? Those are the questions you should ask yourself in reference to your self storage facility. What makes your facility so much better in terms of customer service than your competitors customer service? What do your customers think about your customer service? Do you know how you can find out? You ask the customer. Their feedback is crucial to your business.

The whole idea of customer service in self storage is to get people to rent and to have repeat business. Let us get out of the mundane one-size fits all strategy, dig deep, discover their true storage needs and find a solution that can work for them. Treat customers like you want to be treated and providing them and excellent experience will flow naturally. If the caller does not want to volunteer information, ask questions that get it out of them. The more information you have, the better you are able to accommodate their needs.

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Quality assurance is the one thing that is worth its weight in gold to any company. It is the one thing that will keep your business afloat. Quality assurance helps to keep small things from becoming major problems, if caught at the beginning, rather than when it is shipped out or has reached the consumers. It is a way to assure your consumers that anyone that uses your products that they have been thoroughly tested and checked for the best quality assurance you can get.

Quality assurance has saved a great many of companies from being out of millions of dollars. Being able to trouble shoot and pin point a problem before it leaves the production is a fabulous thing and a great way to know your product is safe. It also allows the product to be put under a fine tooth comb for durability, safety, value, and many other things that are tested as far as quality is concerned. It keeps any company that takes pride in quality assurance, head above water.

The benefit of having quality assurance is that you have an opportunity to catch things before they leave for production. It also allows several testing points at each operation so there is no reason for failed quality to leave the factory without being caught at some point of operation. Quality assurance is an assurance to the consumer and the companies that they are guaranteeing there product to be one hundred percent tested to be a good product.

Quality Assurance is leading the industry in quality due to its success rate and all around performance. Employees take great pride in what they are manufacturing because they feel a sense of contribution knowing that they are making a difference. 

Todays market is so full of many types of products, everyone is trying to have the best product on the market. But not everyone is taking measures to assure quality assurance to its consumer. Taking the best approach will always result in the best. Which is why having a team of quality experts to assure you the best of quality assurance is the way to go.

Quality assurance leads the industry in quality performance. The industry has teams of quality workers who take great pride in the assurance of quality at its greatest. Businesses rely on there professional opinions to assure them a quality product are going out to its consumers. They trust that their employees are doing everything in there professional ability to assure a great product.

The many talents that are used to test for a quality product are amazing to say the least.
They go through so many different levels of testing with the product even before marketing or any other department gets it. The quality assurance team is a group of dedicated workers determined to make sure that any product gets top of the line quality performance before it ever leaves the quality control department. 

Quality at its best is the number one going assurance for a top of the line quality performance. A great team of quality players will always strive for nothing but the best in quality. Quality assurance can make or break your company, if you do not have a quality assurance team now, you should get one. You will see a difference in your production and how consumers interact with your product.

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In the business world today, you have to be good with the customers that you deal with. With good customer service, you can ensure that you will have a great chance for success. Some companies have a planned way they provide customer service in the aspect of talking with the customer and finding out about their lifestyle. Some companies allow their merchandising to do all the customer service for them. There are some good ways and some bad ways to take care of the customer. Anyone can get into a huge debate on which way is the best.

Think about the last time you entered a place in which you were taken care of. Whether it was in fine dining or in looking for a self storage unit, you have had the opportunity to have great customer service. What made that customer service so great? What made you so impressed that you wanted go back to that property again? That is what many businesses are asking the customer these days to find out how they can better serve the customers at their business versus their competitors.

It is very hard to find a way to differentiate the customer service experience from one competitor to the next. Everyone tries to do what they can to outsmart, outlast, and outthink their competitors. In self storage, some companies take training classes on how better give customer service to those people that call. They often have specials that would definitely gain the callers attention and they invite them down to take a tour of the facility. Some storage facilities give away a free truck or lock in order to gain the customers business. However, let us remember, the name of the game is customer service, not what can we give them for free to rent or buy.

Customer service is only as good as your passion. If you do not honestly care what you are doing, you are not going to deliver great customer service. You can fake many things but genuinely caring about the customers needs is hard to fake. You need to ensure that you have people that will talk to the customer face to face and will give outstanding customer service. You know when you have given great customer service when the customer is happy when they are leaving, sings your praises, and understands what they have to do next if they are purchasing something from you. If there is any confusion, the customer service you just gave has been downgraded to just ok.

Providing great service to the customers is not hard. Everyone on this earth can deliver some kind of service to the people they meet. The level of service to the customers depends on many things. Those thinks could include:

• How trained they are on what they are selling
• If they care to help the customer
• If they are having a bad day outside of the workplace
• How they feel about you as a manager
• How they feel about the people they work with
• The environment they work in

Many factors could help determine what level of service the customer receives. As a manager, it is up to you to ensure that your associates give the customer service they deserve.

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Customer service is the one of the greatest jobs around. Being able to help people is a wonderful feeling. It is very rewarding to know that someone was able to get through a situation because customer service made everything ok for them. No matter if it is just answering customers questions or showing them where something was. It is always rewarding to see a happy customer.

Customer service covers such a wide range of services rendered to people just to name a few for example, nursing homes, grocery stores, libraries, valet parking, ushers at church, paying bills, 1-800 numbers, cable services, storage rentals, bank tellers, and the list could go on and on. These people make a real difference in how any business will flow as far as the public is concerned.

If a customer service representative is not polite, and or a courteous person, as well as knowledgeable, they can cause a company to have a bad reputation simply by word of mouth from dissatisfied customers. They will spread the word of bad customer service at the particular company, and for the most part people piggy back on rumors, not caring to check out facts or see for thermselves, being professional at all times, and putting the customers needs before your personality is the number one rule to a good customer service representative. 

Customer service has such a massive range of service that is rendered through out the community. To go into an establishment like a very elegant restaurant, or a top of the line Hotel, or just anywhere, where customer service is the first point of contact you have with anyone or anything.  It makes a world of difference in what you think of a place, or even how comfortable you feel about being there.

If customer service is not at the top of there game so to speak, or doing everything possible to make a lasting impression on the customer then you have lost the customers interest right off the bat, first impressions or lasting ones. It is a fact of customer service.
No one wants to feel like they are being ignored or that no one wants to assist them so to hear it in a customer service representatives voice or to be able to sense it is a travesty for the company that customer service representative works for. Not to mention the rippling affects it can have on customers that have not even visited the establishment.

It is vitally important to have your customer service department understand that they are the meat and potatoes of the company. Customer service is the first point of contact most of the time, no matter what the nature of the situation is. From transferring the call to answering the questions, to whatever the case, customer service is the initial point of contact.

No one likes to be made to feel as though they are not important or what they have to say is not worth listening to. So the customer service department has to come across as though that customer is the most important person they will or have to deal with. Your tone of voice can convey your sincerity as well as the expressions that are made or felt by the customer.  So remember the customer is the most important person you will ever deal with no matter how they may get on your last nerve or how bad you may want to reach out and touch them.  Never take it personal it is always business with a smile. Be polite and keep it moving.

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What do you expect great customer service to look like? Do you expect the same level of customer service wherever you go? What does great customer service mean to you? These are all questions that most business asks them to ask customers so they can improve their business results. Many business need to know how they can ensure better customer service to all the people that use their services or buy their products.

When you enter a grocery store, what kind of customer service are you expecting? Most likely, you will receive someone that says hi when you walk in and by when you leave. However, what do you expect while you are in the store. In some stores, you will see people stocking the shelves and talking to their friends instead of helping you. In those same stores, when you need help, you can never find anyone. Unfortunately, those kinds of stores are prevalent in our society. In thinking about this situation for a second though, do we need to be sold on a loaf of bread or have someone there to recommend which type of bacon is the best since there are a hundred different choices. Most people would say no, but it would be good to have someone there when you needed it.

There is an example of a store that does provide great customer service and they are a grocery store. In some markets, this store exists and is owned by its employees. Therefore, this means that the employees take stock in how everything works within the store and ensures that every customer is greeted they walk by them. Now, they do not go around to each customer in store. That would be crazy and believed to be annoying, but they do not just walk past people without saying hello. Sometimes great customer service is that subtle hello or how are you doing. There was a customer that needed some rub for their steak. The customer had no idea what rub was or where to find it. Therefore, the store associate pointed, which is typical, to the aisle in which the rub was located. The customer could walk up and down the aisle and found the section where it should be, but still could not find it. They went back to the meat department and the associate informed his fellow staff members that he would be leaving the counter to go assist this customer. So to extend his great customer service, the store associate left his counter, mind you still covered in meat product, walked the customer across the store, helped them find the correct section, and then recommended a good rub that their wife would like. Now that is great customer service, from a grocery store nonetheless.

In the example, you saw above, great customer service could come from the unlikeliest sources. There is one, which should be the best at customer service because their livelihoods depend on it. Of course, that field is anything having to do with commission. With the people who work on straight commission, it is expect for their level of customer service to be outstanding. However, raise your hands if you have ever encountered horrible customer service in a commissioned atmosphere. Exactly. Most times, the worst customer services come from those environments. They are pushy sometimes as well as rude. They do not take the time to get to know you, they are most of the time looking for a way to close the sale. Unfortunately, that is there job.

Having great customer service in your workplace, will help you take care of your customer base and have them return for more. Having the right people on your floor, answering your phones, or going out to customers houses, will be what makes or breaks the success of your business.

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Job employment is sometimes one frustrating thing to find. Finding a new career or job employment can sometimes feel like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. One great way to approach finding new job employment is by word of mouth from a friend or family member. Of course, you should use caution when applying for job employment that would require you to work closely with a relative or friend. Working too closely could create tension between the relationships. However, having a reference with someone the company or recruiter knows can work to your advantage when seeking job employment.

Another advantage to getting a job employment lead from a friend or family member is that they will often times know about the open position before an ad has been placed in the classified ads newspaper or online job employment search engine. Getting a head start above the rest of the masses of workers searching for job employment is always a good thing.

If you can not find a job employment opportunity by word of mouth, do not fret. There are other ways of finding a job employment. One of the most popular ways is by checking the local newspaper listings under Job Employment, Job Opportunities or Classifieds. This is where local companies may post ads for open positions within their organization. You can typically learn a brief description about what the job employment responsibilities of the positions are and what the prerequisites of the job employment opening are. In some cases, employers may also include the salary or range in the job employment ad, as well as if there are any benefits included.

Replying to a newspaper job employment ad should be done with extreme care and attention to detail. For example, if an employer places a job employment ad in the paper and requests that applicants send their resume to an email address, then applicants need not mail in a resume to the company. It is also imperative to give your resume one last proof read and make sure that all phone number and email address information is correct.

One thing is for sure, sending out a resume with incorrect contact information will prevent any employer from scheduling an interview with you. And even if you realize the mistake and contact them, it would be difficult for an employer to take an applicant seriously after a bad first impression.

Perhaps the most popular way of searching for job employment is by looking online. There is several popular online job or career search engines. Many niche job search engines allow you to sort employment ads by location, salary range, requirements, date the ad was posted and more. Some sites even allow you to join as a job seeker and keep your career data and resume on file. They may even send you a notice of job employment ads that fit the criteria you select.

One advantage to seeking job employment online is that if you are relocating to another city and even across the country, the Internet allows you to locate a new job no matter where you are sitting.

Your local and metro-area newspapers probably also have online versions of their news and classified ads. Job seekers who are interested in building a new career can use the online version of their local newspaper to access job employment ads quickly.

One key thing about seeking job employment is to keep at it. If your local paper posts new job employment ads each Wednesday and Sunday, then you should look at the paper each of those days. Missing just one day may mean that you lost your dream job.

Another important step in looking for a new job is replying to the job employment ad promptly. If there is a position to be filled, that company may want to act quickly. Sending in your resume when you find the ad is the best strategy. Otherwise, they may fill the position before your resume reaches them.

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