Best days and hours to have the office open

opss

Do we really need to keep the office open 7 days a week?  I am a small operator and have the challenge of part time help. I saw a business open Wed. to Sat. and was wondering what others thought of this idea.  I was thinking Wed. to Sat.  12 to 5:30. With access hours 6 am to 10 pm.

L_Greenwell

Our hours are Monday-Friday 9-5. We do not have a gate, 24 hour access. We have done this for about 12 years. No problem. If someone needs a unit they will find the time to do it Monday-Friday.

Orkocean

The way we do it is is a law of average type situation but what it comes down to is they put a value on every rental with average stays and what not to be about $1000 a year worth of income. Obviously that can be plus or minus depending on unit sizes and what not but average wise that's what we go by. You then count up payroll and costs to be open on Sundays for instance and lets just say payroll is $10 an hour, 4 hours every Sunday for a year comes up to a little over 2 grand in payroll. If in those 52 Sundays we have rented at least 3 units, it counts as a win money wise. We do u-hauls as well so the additional income from trucks, rentals, merchandise always out does our costs to be open. And unfortunately not everyone has the luxury of planning when they need to get storage, sometimes things happen and they need it right then which is why we also offer online rentals as we want to capture every possible rental we can versus our competition. 

i43storage

We have 300 units and no regular hours.  On average, all rentals are scheduled around lunch time, in the evening after people get off work, or Saturday mornings.

storagestation603

We have been Monday - Saturday 9am to 5pm for the last 30 years. Since the place was built and opened. 

teamcapitola

Our office is open 9am to 6pm Monday - Friday, and 10am to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday. GATE access is 6am to 10pm every day.

An important question would be where the facility sits now? are you still in lease up, or have you been stable for a long time? What is your occupancy %, turnover, and such?

We shortened the weekend hours about 3 years after we opened, and did not see any significant difference in Metrics. We are one of the only facilities locally that is open on Sunday, so we do get a fair bit of traffic because of it... enough that I won't entertain closing Sundays, and can easily justify the labor costs (see orkocean's math above).

I am pretty sure we could operate 10am to 4pm 7 days a week and not lose any business; the majority of our calls / walk-ins occur within those hours. Don't think it'll happen anytime soon though.

websterb

Family owned business, 9am-5pm Monday-Friday, gated with access from 6am to 11:59 pm daily. Emergency number on the door. We do come in if there is a need for a quick rental, and are On call for U Haul rentals, which most of the time they leave out on Fridays. Limited rental equipment due to location and low demand.

opss

I am currently open M,W,F and Sat. 1 to 4  it isn't the best but it is working. I get lots of off hours calls

Orkocean

Someone asked in another topic for a report to see when the busiest times were. You can use that report *hourly activity* to see if you have "dead time" when you're considering shortening hours, to add additional would be a shot in the dark unless you have kept track of all the times you get called in while closed to know if it makes sense. Sometimes "dead time" isn't a bad thing though. Sundays here even though it's not one of our slower days it is still the day I will come in with the intention to do any catch up work in office or around property for the week. 

JamesStorage

We are open every day of the week, though we're only 12-4 on Sundays. (9-6) the rest of the week) In my experience Sunday can be a bit of a roulette roll. Somedays we don't see anybody, others we are absolutely steamrolled. Not sure about other states, but here in Missouri, we tend to schedule Sunday things around the church crowd, hence the opening at noon

storagestation603

Monday - Saturday 9am to 5pm. 24 hour gate code access. 

JulieA

Office is currently M-F 9:00 to 5:00.  Considering changing to 10-1 and 2-5 M-F. 

CVSSSTORAGE

Monday- Sunday 8am-6pm no access after 6

Clyde_Lord_Jr

It may also depend on when your competition is open. Most storage customers don't think that far in advance and many need storage at the last minute. If you're closed and they are open, they may get that customer. Maybe bankers type hours and closed Wednesday and Sundays? . It may also help with finding PT or even FT help if they have regular hours. 

Robyn

We have two facilities. The smaller facility is just 250 units and we are open M-F 9-5 Saturday 9-3 and closed on Sundays. Our larger facility has 757 units and we are open M-F 10-6 Saturday 9-6 and Sunday 10-4pm

MrFugate

We are open M-F 9-6 Sat 9-5 Sun 9-2.

 If Sunday is the 1st or Last Day of the month it gets a little busy around 12- close but the rest of the time we have the better part of 5 hours to "Maintain" the property. ie. Do Paperwork, Clan , Plan tasks for the week ahead, Surprisingly it makes Mondays very easy. With myself & a Part time person trading off Sundays it's not that bad. On the weeks that I work on Sunday it's like having 2 1/2 days off.

TCBlossoms

We were open 9am-4:00pm Mon-Sat. however we found that there wasn't any foot traffic or phone calls on Saturdays.  We found the reason for this was people that needed a storage unit signed up during the week and moved in over the weekend.  They didn't want the hassell of dealing with a moving truck and signing up for the unit on the same day.  
We have since found there are more early morning calls and foot traffic so we now are open Monday-Friday 8:30am - 3:30pm.  We have not had any complaints especially since the tenants have 24/7 access to their units.
The one thing we have made a habit is checking to make sure that the gate codes work as soon as we sign someone up because QuikStor does not always link up with sitelink.  Therefore this practice keeps from anyone moving in over the weekend and not being able to access the facility.