Hi Everyone!

As of yesterday we became an agent for Penske Trucks! I am very excited about starting this new venture. I would like any feedback, pros, cons, tips, etc from those of you who have rental trucks. I do believe this will be good for our market and drive more people to our facility. We do not have any other facilities offering this in our zip code!

Any and all advice is very much appreciated!!

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MusicCity Gal

Good job and happy renting!!!

We have a storage facility down the road (within a mile) that rents U-Hauls -- they actually help us as they have very poor customer service! We have gotten more rentals lately from people that went there to rent a U-haul and came to us for storage

I guess what I'm saying here is don't loose site of where the majority of your business comes from!

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Wayne
All American Self Storage
Palmdale, CA.


All arguments can be resolved ... with high explosives and Humor!!!

Hi Wayne!

I was so excited to get a response from you! You always give great advice! We also have one of those about 3 miles down from us with poor service! They are the ONLY place to rent a truck around here, but they are outside of our city limits. We have a small community but I have 400 tenants and get complaints about them all the time. That was one of the reasons we decided to try it. We really are doing it as a community service more than anything. We want to be a one stop shop if you will.....

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MusicCity Gal

A lot of our sites are Penske agents. Penske is willing to price aggresively to get the moving business, if you follow suit it should really increase your market share.

#1) make sure customers know the time the truck is due is the time they turn the keys into you....have had storage customers drive in and begin unloading in their unit at the time the truck is due back and try to justify that b/c the truck is on the property they shouldn't have to pay for extra time

#2) remind them to fuel back up BEFORE they drive back to unload into storage, otherwise they will whine at you about having to pay extra mileage to drive back to gas up when they are already here

#3) provide a broom/cordless vac/etc for them to clean up after themselves and INSIST they are responsible for cleaning out ashes (i hate cleaning up after smokers in reantal trucks!) and all pet hair (suggest they use a blanket in the truck, even for their pet they insisit "won't shed")

#4) stress, stress, stress that others are waiting for the truck and they really do need to return equip on time (even if you don't have another reso at the minute they rent, you don't want to loose a possible really good downloaded reso later on)

#5) don't take it personal when they yell at you...they are stressed with moving...

Hi SharonT and thank you for such a great post!! Those little tips from experienced folks is exactly what I was hoping for!! Great Stuff!! Thanks again!

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MusicCity Gal

Get a industrial size bottle of Aspirin, you're going to need it!!!

I really like your username.

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John Carlisle
Community Manager, Self-Storage Talk
Associate Editor, Light Industrial
Virgo Publishing LLC
480.990.1101, ext. 1214
jcarlisle at vpico dot com

Install a secure drop box for them to return keys....they promise to have it back by 5:00 but 5:00 becomes 6:00 which becomes 6:15 etc.

If you have a hand truck, furniture pads, etc., charge a deposit. Working at On The Move, I take orders for missing hand trucks and furniture pads more often then I would like! They are expensive and easy to walk away with.

Determine your pricing based on demand. Weekends have more demand, so charge more. Offer 1/2 day specials during the week to encourage more week day rentals.

Be careful how you sell insurance options...if you are not a licensed agent, you should not be offering "coverage."

I don't know anything about working with Penske. We are a Budget dealer and will offer my experience with that. I pray for you that it is apples & oranges.

Our truck rentals have brought in 2 storage tenants as a direct result in the 9 months that I have been here. Although, it brings people in that are relocating to our area (and their friends), so providing top notch customer service and understanding their exhuastion and stress from the move provides us the opportunity to rent to them or anyone they mention us to later. We never know where the next one comes from, right?

I am constantly frustrated with my truck rentals, and there are some days that I want to wish them off of my lot...but, I have to remember that it usually has nothing to do with the customer and that the name they take away from the experience is mine and my company's.

My last word of advice is to post something and be sure to state at the time of rental that when dropping off the truck they should not block the entrance or exit your storage facility OR your dumpster. I can't tell you how many "extra pickups" I paid for until I figured that one out!

Have fun!

StorGal