COVID-19 Response: Across Multiple Facilities

by Taressa Dominguez, TSSA Director of Education & Marketing
April 24, 2020

As the coronavirus crisis evolves and we are figuring out how to address the new reality in our businesses, it is helpful to consider the many business processes implemented.  Knowing what peers are doing and getting an idea of how the industry is responding, not only helps breed new ideas, but also the confidence and security in your own procedures.

We spoke with Raheem Amer, Senior Vice President of Operations with Devon Self Storage, and Troy Sheppard, Chief Operating Officer with The Jenkins Organization, to see how they and their teams are responding to COVID-19 across their self-storage operations.  Here’s what they shared with us.

What procedures do you have in place in response to COVID-19?

Raheem Amer: As the pandemic grew, we implemented social distancing, locked the doors and wanted a no-contact sales process where we would still talk to the customers, walk them through the sales process and get the rental—minimizing the exposure to customer and manager.

At the same time, it is extremely important right now that we’re making customer call backs as soon as possible.  If people are looking for a unit when they are supposed to be hunkering down and staying safe, they are really interested in a unit; and if they don’t get a live person as soon as possible, they are just going to move on to the next storage facility on the list.

Troy Sheppard:  Our first step was to analyze the situation and make sure we could keep our offices open to safely help our customers, while at the same time keeping our employees safe. Now, all location offices are open with strict adherence to CDC guidelines and social distancing. Most locations have tape marks on the floor indicating where to stand as well as signage on the doors indicating adherence to these standards. We also try to encourage online payments/rentals, etc.

What has been your biggest challenge so far?

Raheem Amer:  The biggest challenge would be the flow of customer coming to your property—walk in leads. We have seen a drop in walk in traffic. The people that are coming in have a focused interest. That is why they left their house—to go to storage!
 
Now on the other end, we are seeing a drop in move out traffic. We are seeing this because customers are sheltering in place. But we know this trend will change soon. The challenge is to grow occupancy in preparation for those move outs.

Troy Sheppard:  The biggest challenge initially was assuring employees that we would do our best to keep all properties open. Most employees were skeptical that we would be able to, and were afraid of not working and not getting paid. 

How do you plan on handling payment issues, late fees and foreclosures?

Raheem Amer:  First, we’ve waived all late fees. There was a thought process behind it. It’s easier to keep a current customer than trying to gain a new customer.  If you look at how much you spend on a new customer acquisition this is a no brainer. So we have decided to appease that frontline customer.

Second, we’re not overlocking customers and have stopped auctions. We’ve communicated with them, telling them not to worry about storage right now and to go take care of all their other things.  Hopefully we win them as a customer for life.

Troy Sheppard:  We are taking those case by case and have, in a few instances, deferred rent. We have not waived any rent payments thus far. We are handling late fees case by case as well. We have had quite a few instances where we have waived late fees for non-habitual late paying customers who tell us they were laid off, etc. We have temporarily put a stop to foreclosure sales, but we are following through the process up to the point of advertisement and sale.

What steps did you take to ensure continued operation as an essential business?

Raheem Amer:  As different states and cities shut down, we contacted legal to get every manager a letter saying that we are an essential business, the reason we are an essential business and that the employee is either on their way to a property or coming back from a property.  Each manager has a digital copy and a hard copy of it in their wallet.

Troy Sheppard:  We are not taking any extraordinary measures. We have one location that the city has deemed us non-essential despite our arguments to the contrary. We currently operate that facility with the office door locked and manager on site. We have elected not to challenge this ruling for now to avoid any further disruption by city law enforcement.

What are you doing at your facility to combat the impact of the COVID-19 crisis?

Let us know.

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