Extra Space Storage doubled its reservation conversion rate with the Service Cloud

Challenge

• Extra Space Storage Inc. (NSYE: EXR), the second-largest operator of self-storage locations in the United States, needed a new CRM system to bring together sales and call center functions
• The company, which operates over 750 properties in 35 states, used spreadsheets and homegrown solutions to manage customer information
• Executives managing rapid growth wanted to focus on innovation and efficiency, not their data center
• The company preferred cloud-based technologies that could easily be integrated, customized, and deployed
• Support for business processes beyond sales and support was also important

Solution

• Chose salesforce.com’s applications over Microsoft CRM and Oracle On Demand for their rapid deployment and easy integration with legacy systems, as well as salesforce.com’s leadership in cloud computing
• After rolling out the Sales and Service Clouds to 50 sales and support employees in just 8 weeks, the deployment was expanded to 1,200 licenses
• Integrated an InContact telephony system with the Service Cloud to create an end-to-end agent desktop that lets reps access up-to-date information on unit availability, promotions, discounts, and more
• Integrated ExactTarget software for automating mass email campaigns for marketing
• Integrated a SQL database with records of 30,000 self-storage facilities with the Sales and Service Clouds to support strategic and tactical planning
• Integrated a CenterShift point-of-sale (POS) system to capture walk-in reservations, customer call-back times, sales-close percentages, and more
• In-house developers participated in Saleforce.com Training and Certification and are building new applications on Force.com
• Built an IT Purchase Order System and a Risk Management system that lets facility managers enter an accident, such as a customer driving a truck into a storage space, that is converted to an insurance claim and forwarded to reinsurers
• Set up requirements management, project management, and software-release workflow and approval systems and created 350 dashboards outlining the status of multiple key performance indicators (KPIs) for 52 districts and 7 divisions
• Integrated the corporate Web site with the Service Cloud, allowing Web-to-case tracking and response
• Rolled out salesforce.com’s ideas community
• Created joint venture partner reporting portals
• Migrated systems for facility-asset management, capital budgets and expenditures, vendor management, contract generation and maintenance and repair to the salesforce.com solution
• Completed site audit and internal audit (SOX compliance) forms and workflow

Results

• Salesforce.com is becoming the data master for all corporate and customer records, with 6+ million contacts migrated from a legacy POS system
• Up-to-date data combined with unified customer and business views and easy access to real-time performance metrics has improved planning and decision-making
• In 2009, call center agents doubled their reservation conversation rate
• Better data on customer interactions has improved customer satisfaction
• A centralized business system has increased efficiencies
• Adopting cloud computing has decreased IT and system costs
• One developer created a new project tracking application in just 2 days
• Facility managers are now able to research and reserve units at other Extra Space Storage facilities
• Capital expenditures at the facility level can be budgeted, tracked, and scheduled across the entire Extra Space Storage portfolio in both the current year and historically
• Extra Space Storage plans to implement NetDocuments from the AppExchange to move to cloud-based document management