Prepping Your Storage Facility for Back-to-School Season

By Nick Bilava, Storage.com

While many college students around the country don’t want to think about it, back-to-school season is getting close. In August, students will start moving back to college campuses and dorms. That means the items they stored at your self storage facility over the summer are going to be on the move as well.

Back-to-school season is a good opportunity to improve your bottom line by doing what you can to keep students throughout the year—or at least get them to return the following summer. Here are a few tips.

Offer Self Storage Specials for Students

Give students some incentive to stay at your storage facility, like a discounted student rate throughout the school year. Students often live on low monthly incomes, which means they’re always looking for opportunities to save money. Rather than pushing student tenants to choose between being able to eat or rent a storage unit each month, try offering a budget-friendly student discount (with student ID for proof) on storage unit prices for an entire year. It may just keep them around longer.

Now, if students don’t need self storage for a whole year, you can’t force the issue. But you can convince them to come back the following summer. A moving truck rental discount or special can do this. Not every student has a car to get their dorm furniture back to campus, so an August special on moving truck rentals will make their lives easier. While this might seem like more hassle for you, it improves customer experience, which will make a difference come May when they have to choose where to rent a unit again.

Keep Your Storage Facility in Good Shape

One of the best ways to keep tenants or draw them back the next summer is to keep your facility in good condition, especially since you’ll have a ton of foot traffic at your facility (which means eyes on your facility) as students move everything back to school. Run inspections to ensure there’s nothing that could damage tenant belongings or make your facility unsafe, clean up storage buildings and facility grounds, and make sure you have staff on hand to help with any issues students may encounter while moving out of their units.

It’s a crazy time of year if you’re unprepared, so don’t wait. Start prepping your self storage facility for back-to-school season early so that, come August, you’ll be ready for anything.