Self Storage Group
Salesforce customer since 2011
70 employees
70 employees
PRODUCTS USED
Self Storage Group uses Salesforce to bring self-storage to Europe
Imagine you’re a student going home for the holidays. You have a room full of possessions which you can’t leave in your accommodation over the summer – but you’d also rather not lug them all home.
Or imagine you’re that student’s parents. And you want to clear some space in the house once the kids have gone to college. You don’t want to throw all those memories away. You just need somewhere to keep them safe.
In the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand there’s already a well-established solution to these problems – self-storage. But in Norway, self-storage is still a relatively new concept for consumers and an even newer concept for businesses.
And Self Storage Group (SSG), Norway’s largest leaser of self-storage, is largely responsible for bringing this idea to the Norwegian mainstream.
In fact, Fabian Emil Søbak, SSG’s co-founder and CEO, is keen to take it to the European mainstream too: SSG also has operations in Sweden and Denmark. “In Europe, cities are growing, apartments are getting smaller — and people are buying more and more things. People have less storage space of their own – we give them a new option.”
SSG’s challenge is to get these countries interested in physical storage – using digital interactions to educate and nurture them. Here’s how they do it.
Or imagine you’re that student’s parents. And you want to clear some space in the house once the kids have gone to college. You don’t want to throw all those memories away. You just need somewhere to keep them safe.
In the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand there’s already a well-established solution to these problems – self-storage. But in Norway, self-storage is still a relatively new concept for consumers and an even newer concept for businesses.
And Self Storage Group (SSG), Norway’s largest leaser of self-storage, is largely responsible for bringing this idea to the Norwegian mainstream.
In fact, Fabian Emil Søbak, SSG’s co-founder and CEO, is keen to take it to the European mainstream too: SSG also has operations in Sweden and Denmark. “In Europe, cities are growing, apartments are getting smaller — and people are buying more and more things. People have less storage space of their own – we give them a new option.”
SSG’s challenge is to get these countries interested in physical storage – using digital interactions to educate and nurture them. Here’s how they do it.
“Salesforce has enabled us to create consistent customer experiences at scale. With everything in the cloud, we are able to provide great customer services, even though our team is currently working remote.”
Meeting millennial customers on their own terms
“Traditional self-storage companies would require customers to visit a retail outlet attached to their facilities so they could sign a contract,” explains Fabian. “Our customers much prefer to make their bookings online.”
Once they’ve set up their subscription for a storage space, SSG’s customers are sent an access code. They’re then free to access and make use of their storage whenever they like.
This makes things very convenient for SSG’s customers. But it presents certain challenges for Fabian and his team.
“The lack of physical interaction in our customer relationship means that we have to really focus on the interactions we have with our customers through telephone, email and chat,” says Fabian.
“Those interactions are really ‘moments of truth’ for us – they’re where we can get closer to our customers.”
Once they’ve set up their subscription for a storage space, SSG’s customers are sent an access code. They’re then free to access and make use of their storage whenever they like.
This makes things very convenient for SSG’s customers. But it presents certain challenges for Fabian and his team.
“The lack of physical interaction in our customer relationship means that we have to really focus on the interactions we have with our customers through telephone, email and chat,” says Fabian.
“Those interactions are really ‘moments of truth’ for us – they’re where we can get closer to our customers.”
Getting (almost literally) started with Salesforce
SSG has relied on cultivating remote relationships with its customers since 2009, when Fabian and his father founded the company with nothing more than a spreadsheet in which to record customer details.
At that time, Fabian knew all SSG’s customers by name. As the company grew, Fabian quickly saw that the spreadsheet couldn’t scale with them.
So in 2011, Fabian decided that it was time SSG adopted a scalable CRM solution. The solution he chose was Salesforce.
This was a remarkable decision, given that SSG was only employing three people in 2011, but in fact Fabian found that Salesforce catered remarkably well to the needs of his young company.
Through Salesforce, Fabian found a property management app on AppExchange which suited SSGs needs, He then made use of Salesforce’s customisation capabilities to tailor the app even more closely to those needs.
Fabian: “One of the things I liked with Salesforce was that I was able to make changes to our CRM – such as adding new records and fields – without being a developer.”
“That user-friendliness is really important when you’re a small company. It means you don’t have to hire someone to do a lot of customisations for you.”
SSG has grown from three people using Salesforce — to 70. And there are plans for more employees to use it: the accounting team and field service team will adopt it soon.
“Salesforce has been part of our growth the whole way,” says Fabian. “Our employees have always used Salesforce, and they’re used to new functionality constantly being added – and improving their performance.”
At that time, Fabian knew all SSG’s customers by name. As the company grew, Fabian quickly saw that the spreadsheet couldn’t scale with them.
So in 2011, Fabian decided that it was time SSG adopted a scalable CRM solution. The solution he chose was Salesforce.
This was a remarkable decision, given that SSG was only employing three people in 2011, but in fact Fabian found that Salesforce catered remarkably well to the needs of his young company.
Through Salesforce, Fabian found a property management app on AppExchange which suited SSGs needs, He then made use of Salesforce’s customisation capabilities to tailor the app even more closely to those needs.
Fabian: “One of the things I liked with Salesforce was that I was able to make changes to our CRM – such as adding new records and fields – without being a developer.”
“That user-friendliness is really important when you’re a small company. It means you don’t have to hire someone to do a lot of customisations for you.”
SSG has grown from three people using Salesforce — to 70. And there are plans for more employees to use it: the accounting team and field service team will adopt it soon.
“Salesforce has been part of our growth the whole way,” says Fabian. “Our employees have always used Salesforce, and they’re used to new functionality constantly being added – and improving their performance.”
Automating service (and expanding self-service)
SSG’s use of Salesforce has certainly evolved since 2011, primarily to improve and complement those all-important interactions via email and SMS.
“We’ve added a lot of automation to Service Cloud,” says Fabian. “This has enabled us to tie automated emails and SMSs into our customer journeys, so that our customers are receiving relevant communications from when they first contact us to when they empty their storage.”
SSG has also integrated Service Cloud with its ERP and payment systems, enabling the business to send automated reminders to its customers when their subscription payments are due.
Salesforce has also been instrumental in helping SSG to give its customers more self-service capabilities – capabilities that Fabian believes are increasingly sought-after by its customers.
“Our impression is that more and more of our customers – and certainly our Millennial customers – would rather help themselves than contact us,” says Fabian.
To this end, SSG has used Communities to build a customer community on which customers can access helpful information and perform certain simple processes, and has also built a Knowledge Base, collecting useful documents and information (previously scattered across various systems) to help customers troubleshot common issues.
“Thanks to Salesforce, when it comes to these simpler issues, our customers can increasingly help themselves,” says Fabian. “And that helps us too, of course. It means that our customer service team can concentrate on more complex issues.”
“We’ve added a lot of automation to Service Cloud,” says Fabian. “This has enabled us to tie automated emails and SMSs into our customer journeys, so that our customers are receiving relevant communications from when they first contact us to when they empty their storage.”
SSG has also integrated Service Cloud with its ERP and payment systems, enabling the business to send automated reminders to its customers when their subscription payments are due.
Salesforce has also been instrumental in helping SSG to give its customers more self-service capabilities – capabilities that Fabian believes are increasingly sought-after by its customers.
“Our impression is that more and more of our customers – and certainly our Millennial customers – would rather help themselves than contact us,” says Fabian.
To this end, SSG has used Communities to build a customer community on which customers can access helpful information and perform certain simple processes, and has also built a Knowledge Base, collecting useful documents and information (previously scattered across various systems) to help customers troubleshot common issues.
“Thanks to Salesforce, when it comes to these simpler issues, our customers can increasingly help themselves,” says Fabian. “And that helps us too, of course. It means that our customer service team can concentrate on more complex issues.”
The mission: to deliver an experience so great customers talk about it.
Ultimately, as Salesforce has grown and evolved with Fabian’s business, its role has remained essentially the same: to help SSG deliver an excellent service that satisfies its customers – and gets them talking, passionately, about SSG to their friends.
“Customer satisfaction is hugely important to us,” says Fabian. “Self-storage is still a service that most people in Norway aren’t aware of, so word-of-mouth is one of the most important marketing tools we have. It’s imperative to have happy customers.”
But while the majority of Norwegians are still unaware of SSG’s service, an enlightened minority is growing in number all the time – and Fabian has big plans for the company’s future.
“We want to grow with 10,000 square meters of rentable space every year”, says Fabian. “That’s a lot of growth! To make that sort of growth profitable, we have to keep costs down – which is why the scalability of the Salesforce platform is as important to us now as it was back in 2011.”
“Customer satisfaction is hugely important to us,” says Fabian. “Self-storage is still a service that most people in Norway aren’t aware of, so word-of-mouth is one of the most important marketing tools we have. It’s imperative to have happy customers.”
But while the majority of Norwegians are still unaware of SSG’s service, an enlightened minority is growing in number all the time – and Fabian has big plans for the company’s future.
“We want to grow with 10,000 square meters of rentable space every year”, says Fabian. “That’s a lot of growth! To make that sort of growth profitable, we have to keep costs down – which is why the scalability of the Salesforce platform is as important to us now as it was back in 2011.”
Business as usual – in a pandemic
Now that COVID-19 has forced businesses worldwide to lock down, the idea of a business never meeting its customers in the flesh seems less outlandish than ahead-of-the-curve.
And indeed, SSG has seen very little disruption to its operations on account of the pandemic.
“We’re actually very fortunate that we’re in a business where we don’t meet the customers,” says Fabian. “Plus, because our customer service team are used to working on Salesforce – and communicating via Chatter – it’s been easy to transition to remote working.”
It goes to show what a big difference a little tech and a lot of foresight can make.
And indeed, SSG has seen very little disruption to its operations on account of the pandemic.
“We’re actually very fortunate that we’re in a business where we don’t meet the customers,” says Fabian. “Plus, because our customer service team are used to working on Salesforce – and communicating via Chatter – it’s been easy to transition to remote working.”
It goes to show what a big difference a little tech and a lot of foresight can make.
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