Self Storage Lab swivl

Welcome to the Self Storage Lab — where we deconstruct how operators are adapting to today’s technology-driven landscape and how it might impact your business.Have you ever reached that point where running your self-storage property just feels like too much to handle? The good news is that you've got options! In episode 9 of the Self Storage Lab podcast, Kyle, Mason, and Rodolfo discuss the varying management styles in the self storage industry and how they have led to changes in the day-to-day functions of operating teams.



Mentioned in this episode:

The transition period in the industry




The shift from traditional brick and mortar management to remote, unmanned, and virtual management


The rise of technology and changing consumer expectations


The impact of COVID-19 on management styles



Different management styles




Fully remote or unmanned management
Hybrid management styles
Automated management



Which management style is right for you?




The benefits and challenges of the different styles of management
The role of human involvement in remote management
The need for reliable technology and security measures
The importance of customer service and personal interaction
The potential for robots and other technologies to replace human involvement



The shift in management styles in the self storage industry




The importance of focusing on sales and service centers and boots on the ground personnel
Viewing management styles as a customer journey
The importance of the first-time rental experience
70% of renters are first-time renters



The role of technology in improving the customer experience




The potential for cloud-based software, mobile apps, and kiosks to improve efficiency and convenience
The need for reliable technology to protect sensitive data
The potential for technology to improve the ongoing customer experience



Making the decision for your business




The importance of finding the right balance for your business and customers
Pros/Cons of In-house management
Pros/Cons of Third-party management
The economies of scales of Third-party management



Remote vs. Unattended facilities




Is it truly unmanned/unattended?
The benefits/challenges of remote management
What’s the difference between remote and hub and spoke?
What’s the deal with unattended facilities?
Finding the right balance



The Importance of Simplification




How to streamline the Customer Journey to bring uniformity
Simplifying the technology stack to have one way to do as much as possible is key to success
How to optimize the Rental and Sales Process



Leveraging automation in self-storage management




The impact of technology on hiring and employee turnover rates
The importance of standard operating procedures (SOPs) in remote management
The role of technology in enhancing property value and attracting higher-end tenants
Tools and technologies for remote management, including video calling, contact centers, and automated locks
AI for predictive maintenance and enhanced security
Thinking outside the box and applying retail strategies to self-storage management and operations.



Thank you for listening. Please leave any feedback and we encourage you to subscribe to get the latest episodes instantly.


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Cool Use Cases or Examples


Lease summaries
Prompt Engineering
Real time Ad Generation based on your product following, research, and search behavior
Create instant copy and formatting for a website

How Self Storage can leverage GPT-powered tools


How swivl is taking advantage of this technology and how operators are using it TODAY
Introducing Agent Assist for faster response times
Introducing Conversation Summary for an instant overview of an interaction with a current customer
Use Cases and Limitations

How swivl thinks about Intelligent Automation


The new Tier 0 to deflect and automate
Smart routing to the right team member
More Efficient Knowledge workers

What’s new in AI this week


Open AI + Microsoft  Bing AI
Google’s Bard AI + Demo Mishap 
ChatGPT’s 100m Monthly Users
The rise of competitors

[38:00 mark] — Deep Dive into AI market in general


OpenAI: From nonprofit to for profit.
Bing chats with itself
The story behind Sydney cc: Ben Thompson
Prompt Engineering
Difference between chatGPT and GPT3.5

Limitations


What are hallucinations?
Trust and Safety Layer: the layer in between model and user interface
Human Factor Reinforcement Learning

History of OpenAI’s Large Language Model


What datasets was chatGPT trained on?
Are chatgpt users the product now?
Big Data vs Your Data

What’s up next?


Google v Microsoft v Amazon v Meta
Consumer AI tech vs Enterprise AI tech
The importance of business context when leveraging GPT and LLMs


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Long gone are the days when customers only had one or two options for interacting with a company. Today’s customers move freely through digital and analog channels, using telephones, web chat, social media, and others to make purchases, find solutions, initiate returns, and more.

In today's episode, we will be discussing the importance of having a cohesive communication strategy across all channels, including email, social media, and in-person interactions. We will also delve into the role that technology plays in enabling shoppers a seamless, consistent experience wherever they engage with your brand

Some of the topics we will be covering in today's episode include:


The definition of omni-channel communication and why it matters
We will dig into benefits you might expect from a successful transition
Examples of successful omni-channel communication in action
A look at trends to keep an eye on in the new year

We hope you enjoy this episode and come away with a better understanding of the importance of omni-channel communication in today's world.



Show Notes

1:23 - What is Omnichannel?

Defining Omnichannel Communication and why it is important
Expected response times for main communication channels (8:15)
The difference between Omnichannel and Multi-Channel

11:43 - Benefits of Omnichannel Strategy

How can you leverage an omnichannel strategy to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty?
Companies with a strong omnichannel strategy retain an average of 89% of their customers.
Consistency is KEY
How to eliminate friction and silos within your organization?

13:52 - Talk is talk. Time to get our hands dirty. How to create a plan?

Who in your organization should be involved in creating an omnichannel strategy?
How to go about creating an action plan to implement the strategy?
How to create a strategy that combines both in-person interactions to online services?

17:25 - Examples of Companies Doing Omni-Channel Right

Can I use Apple as an example for every topic?!
We discuss how some world-renowned brands are using an omnichannel strategy
Who in Self Storage is doing omnichannel right?

24:35 - How It Affects Operators

What are some of the common pitfalls and challenges business face when implementing an omnichannel strategy?
How to make the transition from a single-channel and multi-channel strategy
What questions to ask when implementing this strategy?
How to incentivize your team successfuly?

31:52 - How to leverage technology to achieve a true omnichannel communication

What’s the role of Automation in an omni-channel strategy?
What is a “channel” and which ones should I be paying attention to?
At what point in the customer’s journey do store managers need to get involved?

39:53 - Pet Peeves

Some fun personal anecdotes of bad omnichannel experiences

44:47 - Self Storage Wrapped | Future Trends

Conversational AI will continue to permeate communication stacks
Amazon Go - style Self Storage facilities?
Can technology create more human connection in the industry?






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We spend a majority of the today’s show nerding out about ChatGPT’s technology in general, discuss some philosophical questions, use cases, and it’s limitations.

If you want to get right to the meat of how this affects the self storage industry - fast forward to 50m30s

The rest of the following show notes were *** WRITTEN BY ChatGPT ***

Introduction:

In this episode, we will be discussing the latest breakthrough in language technology, GPT-3, and its impact on the self-storage industry. GPT-3, which stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3, is an autoregressive language model developed by OpenAI that uses deep learning to produce human-like text. The model was launched in November 2022 and reached 1 million users just five days after its initial launch.

Segment 1: What the heck is GPT-3?


GPT-3 is a large language model that predicts the probable sequence of words. It was trained on a massive corpus of text with more than 175 billion parameters and was taught how to pick up on writing patterns by analyzing millions of conversations.
The model has an input layer, where the user inputs a prompt, and an output layer, where the model generates a response that sounds "human-like."
GPT-3 is based on the GPT-3.5 architecture, which includes three models: text-davinci-002, trained by supervised fine-tuning on human-written demonstration, and samples rated 7/7 by human labelers on overall quality scores, and the most recent text-davinci-003, which includes reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF), a reward-based model trained on comparisons by humans.

Segment 2: How did GPT-3 get so smart?


GPT-3 is the latest iteration in a series of models, including GPT and GPT-2.
The model's intelligence is derived from a massive corpus of text with more than 175 billion parameters.
Beyond GPT-3, what does the future hold?

Segment 3: Use cases


Some examples of GPT-3's capabilities include sending and responding to emails, writing cover letters, building Excel formulas, and creating creative projects such as poems and short stories.

Segment 4: Limitations


GPT-3's limitations include its inability to distinguish between b******t and reality, its lack of understanding of math, and the fact that the code it generates may not always run correctly.

Segment 5: Impact on the Self-Storage Industry


GPT-3's advancements may affect technologies and processes such as Property Management Systems (PMS), the analysis of BI databases, and call centers/customer support.
Specific use cases in the self-storage industry include generating emails and messages, sales pitches, and responses to Google reviews.
It can be eerie as to how human-like GPT-3's responses can sound, but it still has errors.

***END CHAT GPT***

Resources:

Tips and Tricks to using chatGPT:

@JustinFineberg
@thatroblennon
@danshipper


ChatGPT Limitations

OpenAI Blog

OpenAI Alignment Research

OpenAI Moderation Tool

The AI Revolution | Wait But Why






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Welcome to the Self Storage LAB — where we deconstruct how operators are adapting to today’s technology-driven landscape and how it might impact your business.

In today’s business landscape, your online presence and reputation is mission critical to helping you stand out in the sea of competitors. Reviews are one such way to stand out. If you give an unparalleled customer experience, your customer’s won’t keep it a secret. They will share it! Reviews are a Transfer of Trust, the Modern Referral mechanism.

Your brand is your business. And your online reputation is a huge part of your brand.

We explore:


What is Reputation Management and why does it matter?
The value of a reputation management strategy
Examples of brands doing it right
Innovative ways to Collect Reviews

Show Notes

Nerdy Numbers Corner - Why Does It Matter?

Defining Reputation Management
Mason and Rodolfo relay some of the numbers they found researching Reputation Management.

Reviews IRL

Amazon and Yelp reliance on reviews
Wirecutter buying advice
Twitter verification
Google Maps orders Rodolfo’s dinner

Brands to live by

Apple and Nike - High Quality and Aspirational
Southwest - Loyalty and Freedom
Costco - Quality and Affordability
Disney - Feel Good Stories
Subaru - AWD and Mountains

Self Storage Operators build their reputation

Google is King
Getting involved in your community
Brand trust is the long term investment

How To: Reputation Management 101

WHY? Reviews lead to more sales
Pillars of Reputation Management
Build
Maintain
Recover

Using sentiment throughout the customer journey to optimize for positive reviews
Gold Standard: Net Promoter Scoring
Turning detractors into promoters: Acknowledge, Align, Assure

Incentives and strategy for more reviews

Put that review to work

Social Proof and the Trust Economy
Just Reply!
Showcase them on your website
Turn that frown upside down. Handling negative reviews
Review gating discussion

Decision Time

Google My Business
Does it integrate?
Does it support multiple locations?
Can I manage my listings?
Insights and Analytics offerings?
Other features to make the job easier?

Other Misc Links

Wendy’s Twitter
Wendy’s best tweets
Reputation.com
Typeform
Qualitrics
Uberall


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Welcome to the Self Storage Lab — where we deconstruct how operators are adapting to today’s technology-driven landscape and how it might impact your business.

Even with facility occupancy at all-time highs this year, operators should be exploring fresh ways to market their facilities. Even in a booming market, you can build momentum and capitalize on the steady demand.

By embracing new Email Marketing concepts, you can stay ahead of the curve, engage new tenants, and educate customers on your facility amenities and company news.

We breakdown how it affects Operators and Customers alike, what to look for when making a decision, and discuss some tools you can use to streamline your Email Marketing.

We explore:


The benefits of Email Marketing
Email Marketing Best Practices
List Building
What to track and what not to track
Segmentation and Personalization at scale
Community Building
Email Reputation
Email Marketing Pet Peeves

Show Notes:


What is Email Marketing
Overview of the Best Practices for Email Marketing
The importance of a checklist before sending a campaign
Designing your Email and Leveraging Templates
Audience and List Building
Is it worth buying a list?
Criteria operators should identify to meaningfully segment their audience
Leveraging Email Marketing to test content
Your secret weapon: Facility waitlists!!
List Health tools: Litmus and Sender Score
Transactional vs Marketing Emails
Content Segmentation
The importance of having a campaign goal
Example email campaigns
Don’t be afraid of the Unsubscribe button!
What to Measure
Top KPIs every operator should measure
A/B Testing as a tool
It is critical to understand your main driver
UTM parameters and link tracking
Best times to engage your list
Using data and parallel industry benchmarks to help inform you
Top Email Marketing Players
SBOA’s newsletter template
StoragePug’s shareable content
Learns from Extra Space and Public Storage
Superhuman and Sketch as Case Studies
Tools and recommendations
An Operator’s decision and purchase checklist
Top features to look out for when purchasing
swivl’s email marketing tech stack: Mandrill/Mailchimp, Sendgrid, FMS integrations
E-commerce as a case study: Klaviyo, Active Campaign
Generative AI tools: Copy.ai



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