PHOENIX, Arizona – December 4th, 2012 – OpenTech Alliance, Inc. announced that Stow-It Self Storage is moving towards greener pastures while introducing tenants to their new assistant manager, the INSOMNIAC™ 900 Kiosk. At the same time, Stow-It managers are excited to be joining the paperless movement to preserve Canadian Maple Leafs and save some bucks.
Located in the rural community of Port Elgin (Ontario Canada), property managers were skeptical at first to implement the new paperless process and raised concerns on the possibility of adverse side effects on customer relationships. Steve Levack, Owner of Stow-It Self Storage said, “Going paperless entirely through the machine and even faceless at times, required a solution to make the process both tenant and manager friendly.” After some great planning, Levack was able to unveil a process that favored customers and onsite managers.
Levack’s vision to route all consumer transactions through the kiosk was originally planned to house all data and sales documents in one secure place. Making the model more efficient led to removing filing cabinets and assisting managers by eliminating the drawn out task of taking payments. “Collecting money is not our manager’s top priority, its sales,” stated Levack. After deciding to go paperless, encouraging his manager to use the technology became less of a challenge.
The on-site kiosk has been modified to facilitate paperless transactions by distributing all receipts, lease agreements and tenant billings via email. Still, the office sends a small amount of paper receipts by mail upon request. Prior to moving in, every phone & online reservation is steered directly to the kiosk for activation and facility access. Managers also guide tenants to the kiosk to complete on-site reservations when working face to face. When managers are occupied or unavailable, the INSOMNIAC kiosk VOIP phone provides real-time customer care with an OpenTech Storage Counselor to customers needing assistance.
“I live two hours from the facility and am away more often than not. I would strongly encourage other self storage owners to operate in this fashion. The initiative has helped us reduce the costs of paper, ink, toner and man-hours related to the payment, rental and bookkeeping process. Saving time for both our customers and managers is something you can’t put a price on,” added Levack. Fringe benefits of the system enable Stow-It to rent units and take payments entirely through the kiosk on Sundays and after 5:00pm on weekdays when the office is closed.
About OpenTech Alliance, Inc. About OpenTech Alliance, Inc.: A pioneer in self storage automation, OpenTech Alliance is the leading developer of innovative self service solutions for the self storage industry. Their trail was blazed by offering facilities 24 hour self service automation through a complete line of INSOMNIAC™ Kiosks. Today, the innovation continues with a full range of self service rental solutions that include; Self Storage Cloud Services, INSOMNIAC Live! Call Center, INSOMNIAC Online web & mobile applications, LiveAgent! software products and the INSOMNIAC ILock system. OpenTech products and services increase revenues, reduce operating costs and improve customer convenience for self storage businesses. For more information please click OpenTechAlliance.com or call an OpenTech Business Development Manager at (602) 749-9370.
Press Contact:
Mike Sawyer, Director of Marketing
OpenTech Alliance, Inc.
(602) 324-8655.
msawyer@opentechalliance.com
NOTE TO EDITORS: OpenTech Alliance, the OpenTech logo and INSOMNIAC are trademarks of OpenTech Alliance, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. INSOMNIAC is protected by U.S. patent number 5,946,660.
