Let's talk about self storage.

RE: CASH DISCOUNT -  I quit taking cash man years ago.  I felt it was too much risk for the manger getting held up.  I had a manager show didnt want to enforce the policy.  I emphatically replied.  If you don't want to enforce the policy, find another job.  We now have 90% on cc payments.  The balance pay with check or money orders. Our cc processing rate in 1.7% through Trinity Merchant services.  

RE: CASH DISCOUNT -  I quit taking cash man years ago.  I felt it was too much risk for the manger getting held up.  I had a manager show didnt want to enforce the policy.  I emphatically replied.  If you don't want to enforce the policy, find another job.  We now have 90% on cc payments.  The balance pay with check or money orders. Our cc processing rate in 1.7% through Trinity Merchant services.  

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

We have a facility that uses Hummingbird by Tenant Inc., and three that use Sitelink Web Edition. I'm happy to provide the good, bad, and ugly on both of them. I also have slight experience with WebSelfStorage by U-Haul.

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

We have a facility that uses Hummingbird by Tenant Inc., and three that use Sitelink Web Edition. I'm happy to provide the good, bad, and ugly on both of them. I also have slight experience with WebSelfStorage by U-Haul.

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

I'm with Scott.  I would like to hear what you like and don't like about Sitelink and Hummingbird.  A direct message would be fine or post on the TSSA discussion.

We have a facility that uses Hummingbird by Tenant Inc., and three that use Sitelink Web Edition. I'm happy to provide the good, bad, and ugly on both of them. I also have slight experience with WebSelfStorage by U-Haul.

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

Original Message:
Sent: 10/9/2024 4:48:00 PM
From: Dominic Kickbush
Subject: RE: Storable

We have a facility that uses Hummingbird by Tenant Inc., and three that use Sitelink Web Edition. I'm happy to provide the good, bad, and ugly on both of them. I also have slight experience with WebSelfStorage by U-Haul.

------------------------------
Dominic Kickbush
WF Self Storage, LLC.
Wichita Falls TX
(303) 968-5396

Original Message:
Sent: 09-29-2024 10:04 AM
From: David Fisher
Subject: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 9/28/2024 12:00:00 PM
From: David Fisher
Subject: RE: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 9/27/2024 11:33:00 AM
From: Thomas Kent
Subject: RE: Storable

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

------------------------------
Thomas Kent
United Storage of Bowie
Bowie TX
(972) 672-2120

Original Message:
Sent: 09-10-2024 10:39 AM
From: David Fisher
Subject: Storable

Buckle up - this is going to be a lengthy one! I can only speak on Sitelink Web Edition and Hummingbird by Tenant Inc. as I have no experience with Storedge. I'll start with Sitelink Web Edition since most operators have heard of it. I don't have any affiliation with either company - I've just grown frustrated over the years with the lack of technology in self storage.

Sitelink

Pros

It's tried and true. Sitelink has been around for decades and is a staple software in the industry. With that comes excellent third party integration with other vendors and a great tech support infrastructure. I've seen many posts complaining about their support, but I can't stand behind that. Every time one of us calls it only takes a couple of minutes on hold to reach someone. If they are not able to resolve the issue, it's immediately passed to the next level of support and resolved quickly. In a day and age where it takes endless phone trees to finally speak with someone who is on a script, that's pretty good! I've had a few rude interactions with support reps before, but people will be people no matter where you talk to them.

The program is fairly customizable and you can pretty much do anything you need to. Emails are customizable in RTF or HTML, which is a double edged sword if you don't have familiarity with HTML.

It's also very reliable. I can't think of a circumstance where the program didn't work. It has an excellent uptime and has very little bugs. You can tell it's been refined over the years to what it's become today.

Cons

Sounds great doesn't it? The main issue I have with Sitelink is that it was an excellent software, in 2010... it's become extremely outdated and trying to get it to perform modern workflows requires a bunch of third party integrations, which requires more subscriptions. Workflows are fragmented because of this. If I want to be able to text customers that they have a balance due, I have to subscribe to another service provider that integrates with Sitelink. Properly reversing transactions becomes an exercise in logic, instead of just clicking a button and having the proper authority to do so. 

Because of its age, it's also dependent on Windows. That might not be a big deal to some people, but my wife and I are both heavy Mac/iPad users and have to subscribe to a Windows 365 virtual computer in order to run the program. They have a browser based version of the program, called myHub, but it's extremely limited in application. For example, I'm not able to send out letters, change settings, perform overlock/reverse overlocks, etc. through myHub.

Their electronic signature is not mobile friendly. They recently announced an update to their eSign program, but many on the Self Storage Talk forum are reporting that it doesn't work well either and tech support is telling people to revert back to the old one. 70%+ of our online renters are on a mobile device. It should be optimized for mobile. Their online tenant portal is terrible, especially for mobile (unable to update autopay on the mobile version of the site). There are ways around this, namely having a website provider that essentially puts a skin on the user interface, making the UI much more friendly.

The program has pretty much functioned the same for too long to justify the yearly increases. There is very little development, if any, and it scares me to think it will remain the same in 2030. We live in an age where you can buy a car and finance it completely online. 

I go to a particular self storage conference every year and talk with many of the vendors to see what's new, what they're working on, and their overall standing in the many options to choose from. I make it a point to stop by the Storable/Sitelink booth and see if they have an update on the EMV chip readers they've been promising for years and years. Each year I speak with them I get the same answer: it's in beta testing and will release in July of 202X. I'm no software engineer, but it can't be THAT groundbreaking to release a payment terminal. What's even more inexcusable is that the justification I received on why all of their users must switch to their in-house payment processing company years ago is so that the chip readers could be released without having to integrate with dozens of payment processing companies. The irony is that EMV chip technology is becoming outdated with tap to pay! I've just become tired of the same old program year after year when consumer behavior has continued to evolve in the online marketplace.

Hummingbird by Tenant Inc.

Pros

It's modern. It can be accessed from any device connected to the internet because it's browser based. Many of the third party integrations you would need to pay for with Sitelink are already built into the software. Two-way texting is built into the program and a subscription to Hummingbird comes with a free subscription to a limited version of Birdeye (reputation/citation management). It has many third party integrations with other vendors as well (access control, call centers, revenue management, you name it). The software is mostly built vertically, meaning the different pieces all lie within Hummingbird. I can completely customize the website, update meta titles and descriptions, photos, colors, promotions etc. all from within the property management software. This leads to my next point - ease of use and automation. It's a bit hard to put into words, so here's a few theoretical use cases.

Someone walks in and wants to rent a storage unit. You go through the usual information exchange, take a copy of their drivers license, and then you get to the payment. The customer can swipe, insert, or tap their card to pay us. There's no possession of the card by one of our employees. We can then either text or email the contract for signing, or print it out if they prefer a paper copy to read over. 95% of customers are fine doing it on their mobile device because they don't read it anyway. We can also swivel our computer around (touch screen) so that they can sign it on a larger media. It automatically generates the correct contract, autopay authorization if they're on autopay, and the correct insurance sign up form. If they are military, it automatically includes the military addendum. It can do this for businesses and the associated addendum as well. Everything is done for us which minimizes mistakes in the signing process. After a few days, the customer automatically receives a text and email via Birdeye asking them to leave us a review.

Another example: someone calls over the phone to inquire about a storage unit. They want to rent then and there, but they are out of state and their brother is going to be the one unloading into the storage unit. In Hummingbird, I can make a reservation, which autogenerates a reservation confirmation email (which looks beautiful by the way). There's a link in the email to complete the rental online. The customer is able to pick up where we left off, with all the quoted information/promotions, and rent the unit. Hummingbird also has a built in ability to verify their identity - the customer uploads an image of the front/back of their government issued ID as well as a selfie. With machine learning, the website is able to verify if it's a match and release the gate code to the tenant. If it's not a match (which we've tested ourselves), it completes the rental and has them sign their documents, but it does not release the gate code in the move-in confirmation email and instead prompts the customer to stop by the office for their gate code. This can be configured to where you don't allow online verification and have everyone come in the office as well. Why does this matter? Criminals will rent a unit online under a pseudonym and a prepaid debit card in order to get access to the facility. I read a post from someone in Self Storage Talk talking about this exact thing happening. We continue to believe that identity verification is necessary for online rentals. There are work arounds to this in Sitelink with third party website companies (I believe The Storage Group has identity verification as well), but it requires another third party subscription and another company to work with. Our subscription to Hummingbird comes with a beautiful website - a website that I can make on the fly changes to within Hummingbird.

And my last example: we had a customer's ACH auto debit bounce back. I received an email three days after the payment was processed notifying me of the bounced eCheck. I then went into Hummingbird begrudgingly to see what I would have to do to tell the program that the payment was bad and then send an email to the customer. To my surprise, it was already taken care of. The payment was automatically reversed, an NSF fee was automatically added to the ledger, and an email was automatically sent out to the customer notifying them of the chargeback. Chef's kiss. In Sitelink, it can take a week to receive that information back and I have to check for chargebacks manually every single day. I don't know if it's been fixed, but reversing the payment and dealing with the notification and fee is another exercise in logic on how to perform it within the outdated software.

There have also been rumors for some time about a much easier online rental process that will be released sooner or later. I would imagine this would include a shortened rental form, less clicks, and click-wrap document signing instead of an actual eSignature document. All the REIT's have this on their website already for a reason - every step you remove in the rental process has a positive impact on the conversion rate.

In short, Hummingbird just makes things easier and keeps up with a modernizing self-storage tenant base.

Cons

It's a startup software company. This means that small annoying bugs will pop up in rare circumstances that require a call to tech support. Their support team is friendly and competent, but it's not the behemoth that Sitelink/Storable can provide for their three programs. It might take a day or two, but it's eventually resolved.

A few basic features are also missing as of the time of this writing. We own three facilities in another state which sell tons of merchandise every month. We think it's important to keep an accurate count of our inventory in order to prevent or catch employee theft. Hummingbird does not have a way to track inventory counts at the moment. Last I heard it's going to be released in a software update before the end of the year. There also isn't a way to upload the tenant's ID into a profile picture of sorts. You can scan the ID into the tenant's profile, but it does not show up in a profile picture in the sitemap or tenant profile. These are nitpicky, but it would be nice.

Hummingbird isn't mobile device friendly. It works really well on my iPad, but it's basically unusable on a mobile phone.

Summary

In my opinion, they have a few things basic things Hummingbird by Tenant Inc. needs to add in order to make the software complete. We switched one of our facilities to Hummingbird because we saw the trajectory of where Sitelink was going (flat) and where Hummingbird has been going and wanted to give it a test ride. I think it's really close to being a complete package and is already suitable for pretty much everyone, we just tend to nitpick I suppose. I'd highly encourage everyone to ask for a demo from one of their sales reps.

I've never used Storedge in a real storage operation, though I've demoed it quite a few times, and it seems like it leans toward something similar to Hummingbird. The reason we haven't pursued Storedge is because we got pretty turned off from the private equity owned Storable umbrella and its continued growing monopoly in the self-storage vendor space. At this point they own the three major property management software, Sparefoot (which competes with our SEO and gets between us and the customer), PTI, a website company, tenant insurance plans, and on and on. We're throwing in with Hummingbird due to the identity verification and are excited with its future promise. A monopolized vendor market for private operators who are already getting hammered with consolidation by the REITs is alarming, to me at least.

Again, I am not affiliated with either company and have no horse in the race on which company you decide to go with. Choose what you'd like and please update the rest of us on your experience. It's hard to get real user feedback in this space due to self-storage being a niche industry and the more information that's out there the better!

Original Message:
Sent: 10-10-2024 08:58 AM
From: Scott Smith
Subject: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 10/9/2024 4:48:00 PM
From: Dominic Kickbush
Subject: RE: Storable

We have a facility that uses Hummingbird by Tenant Inc., and three that use Sitelink Web Edition. I'm happy to provide the good, bad, and ugly on both of them. I also have slight experience with WebSelfStorage by U-Haul.

------------------------------
Dominic Kickbush
WF Self Storage, LLC.
Wichita Falls TX
(303) 968-5396

Original Message:
Sent: 09-29-2024 10:04 AM
From: David Fisher
Subject: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 9/28/2024 12:00:00 PM
From: David Fisher
Subject: RE: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 9/27/2024 11:33:00 AM
From: Thomas Kent
Subject: RE: Storable

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

------------------------------
Thomas Kent
United Storage of Bowie
Bowie TX
(972) 672-2120

Original Message:
Sent: 09-10-2024 10:39 AM
From: David Fisher
Subject: Storable

As if on queue, I just received another subscription price increase notice from Storable for the same software we had years ago.

Buckle up - this is going to be a lengthy one! I can only speak on Sitelink Web Edition and Hummingbird by Tenant Inc. as I have no experience with Storedge. I'll start with Sitelink Web Edition since most operators have heard of it. I don't have any affiliation with either company - I've just grown frustrated over the years with the lack of technology in self storage.

Sitelink

Pros

It's tried and true. Sitelink has been around for decades and is a staple software in the industry. With that comes excellent third party integration with other vendors and a great tech support infrastructure. I've seen many posts complaining about their support, but I can't stand behind that. Every time one of us calls it only takes a couple of minutes on hold to reach someone. If they are not able to resolve the issue, it's immediately passed to the next level of support and resolved quickly. In a day and age where it takes endless phone trees to finally speak with someone who is on a script, that's pretty good! I've had a few rude interactions with support reps before, but people will be people no matter where you talk to them.

The program is fairly customizable and you can pretty much do anything you need to. Emails are customizable in RTF or HTML, which is a double edged sword if you don't have familiarity with HTML.

It's also very reliable. I can't think of a circumstance where the program didn't work. It has an excellent uptime and has very little bugs. You can tell it's been refined over the years to what it's become today.

Cons

Sounds great doesn't it? The main issue I have with Sitelink is that it was an excellent software, in 2010... it's become extremely outdated and trying to get it to perform modern workflows requires a bunch of third party integrations, which requires more subscriptions. Workflows are fragmented because of this. If I want to be able to text customers that they have a balance due, I have to subscribe to another service provider that integrates with Sitelink. Properly reversing transactions becomes an exercise in logic, instead of just clicking a button and having the proper authority to do so. 

Because of its age, it's also dependent on Windows. That might not be a big deal to some people, but my wife and I are both heavy Mac/iPad users and have to subscribe to a Windows 365 virtual computer in order to run the program. They have a browser based version of the program, called myHub, but it's extremely limited in application. For example, I'm not able to send out letters, change settings, perform overlock/reverse overlocks, etc. through myHub.

Their electronic signature is not mobile friendly. They recently announced an update to their eSign program, but many on the Self Storage Talk forum are reporting that it doesn't work well either and tech support is telling people to revert back to the old one. 70%+ of our online renters are on a mobile device. It should be optimized for mobile. Their online tenant portal is terrible, especially for mobile (unable to update autopay on the mobile version of the site). There are ways around this, namely having a website provider that essentially puts a skin on the user interface, making the UI much more friendly.

The program has pretty much functioned the same for too long to justify the yearly increases. There is very little development, if any, and it scares me to think it will remain the same in 2030. We live in an age where you can buy a car and finance it completely online. 

I go to a particular self storage conference every year and talk with many of the vendors to see what's new, what they're working on, and their overall standing in the many options to choose from. I make it a point to stop by the Storable/Sitelink booth and see if they have an update on the EMV chip readers they've been promising for years and years. Each year I speak with them I get the same answer: it's in beta testing and will release in July of 202X. I'm no software engineer, but it can't be THAT groundbreaking to release a payment terminal. What's even more inexcusable is that the justification I received on why all of their users must switch to their in-house payment processing company years ago is so that the chip readers could be released without having to integrate with dozens of payment processing companies. The irony is that EMV chip technology is becoming outdated with tap to pay! I've just become tired of the same old program year after year when consumer behavior has continued to evolve in the online marketplace.

Hummingbird by Tenant Inc.

Pros

It's modern. It can be accessed from any device connected to the internet because it's browser based. Many of the third party integrations you would need to pay for with Sitelink are already built into the software. Two-way texting is built into the program and a subscription to Hummingbird comes with a free subscription to a limited version of Birdeye (reputation/citation management). It has many third party integrations with other vendors as well (access control, call centers, revenue management, you name it). The software is mostly built vertically, meaning the different pieces all lie within Hummingbird. I can completely customize the website, update meta titles and descriptions, photos, colors, promotions etc. all from within the property management software. This leads to my next point - ease of use and automation. It's a bit hard to put into words, so here's a few theoretical use cases.

Someone walks in and wants to rent a storage unit. You go through the usual information exchange, take a copy of their drivers license, and then you get to the payment. The customer can swipe, insert, or tap their card to pay us. There's no possession of the card by one of our employees. We can then either text or email the contract for signing, or print it out if they prefer a paper copy to read over. 95% of customers are fine doing it on their mobile device because they don't read it anyway. We can also swivel our computer around (touch screen) so that they can sign it on a larger media. It automatically generates the correct contract, autopay authorization if they're on autopay, and the correct insurance sign up form. If they are military, it automatically includes the military addendum. It can do this for businesses and the associated addendum as well. Everything is done for us which minimizes mistakes in the signing process. After a few days, the customer automatically receives a text and email via Birdeye asking them to leave us a review.

Another example: someone calls over the phone to inquire about a storage unit. They want to rent then and there, but they are out of state and their brother is going to be the one unloading into the storage unit. In Hummingbird, I can make a reservation, which autogenerates a reservation confirmation email (which looks beautiful by the way). There's a link in the email to complete the rental online. The customer is able to pick up where we left off, with all the quoted information/promotions, and rent the unit. Hummingbird also has a built in ability to verify their identity - the customer uploads an image of the front/back of their government issued ID as well as a selfie. With machine learning, the website is able to verify if it's a match and release the gate code to the tenant. If it's not a match (which we've tested ourselves), it completes the rental and has them sign their documents, but it does not release the gate code in the move-in confirmation email and instead prompts the customer to stop by the office for their gate code. This can be configured to where you don't allow online verification and have everyone come in the office as well. Why does this matter? Criminals will rent a unit online under a pseudonym and a prepaid debit card in order to get access to the facility. I read a post from someone in Self Storage Talk talking about this exact thing happening. We continue to believe that identity verification is necessary for online rentals. There are work arounds to this in Sitelink with third party website companies (I believe The Storage Group has identity verification as well), but it requires another third party subscription and another company to work with. Our subscription to Hummingbird comes with a beautiful website - a website that I can make on the fly changes to within Hummingbird.

And my last example: we had a customer's ACH auto debit bounce back. I received an email three days after the payment was processed notifying me of the bounced eCheck. I then went into Hummingbird begrudgingly to see what I would have to do to tell the program that the payment was bad and then send an email to the customer. To my surprise, it was already taken care of. The payment was automatically reversed, an NSF fee was automatically added to the ledger, and an email was automatically sent out to the customer notifying them of the chargeback. Chef's kiss. In Sitelink, it can take a week to receive that information back and I have to check for chargebacks manually every single day. I don't know if it's been fixed, but reversing the payment and dealing with the notification and fee is another exercise in logic on how to perform it within the outdated software.

There have also been rumors for some time about a much easier online rental process that will be released sooner or later. I would imagine this would include a shortened rental form, less clicks, and click-wrap document signing instead of an actual eSignature document. All the REIT's have this on their website already for a reason - every step you remove in the rental process has a positive impact on the conversion rate.

In short, Hummingbird just makes things easier and keeps up with a modernizing self-storage tenant base.

Cons

It's a startup software company. This means that small annoying bugs will pop up in rare circumstances that require a call to tech support. Their support team is friendly and competent, but it's not the behemoth that Sitelink/Storable can provide for their three programs. It might take a day or two, but it's eventually resolved.

A few basic features are also missing as of the time of this writing. We own three facilities in another state which sell tons of merchandise every month. We think it's important to keep an accurate count of our inventory in order to prevent or catch employee theft. Hummingbird does not have a way to track inventory counts at the moment. Last I heard it's going to be released in a software update before the end of the year. There also isn't a way to upload the tenant's ID into a profile picture of sorts. You can scan the ID into the tenant's profile, but it does not show up in a profile picture in the sitemap or tenant profile. These are nitpicky, but it would be nice.

Hummingbird isn't mobile device friendly. It works really well on my iPad, but it's basically unusable on a mobile phone.

Summary

In my opinion, they have a few things basic things Hummingbird by Tenant Inc. needs to add in order to make the software complete. We switched one of our facilities to Hummingbird because we saw the trajectory of where Sitelink was going (flat) and where Hummingbird has been going and wanted to give it a test ride. I think it's really close to being a complete package and is already suitable for pretty much everyone, we just tend to nitpick I suppose. I'd highly encourage everyone to ask for a demo from one of their sales reps.

I've never used Storedge in a real storage operation, though I've demoed it quite a few times, and it seems like it leans toward something similar to Hummingbird. The reason we haven't pursued Storedge is because we got pretty turned off from the private equity owned Storable umbrella and its continued growing monopoly in the self-storage vendor space. At this point they own the three major property management software, Sparefoot (which competes with our SEO and gets between us and the customer), PTI, a website company, tenant insurance plans, and on and on. We're throwing in with Hummingbird due to the identity verification and are excited with its future promise. A monopolized vendor market for private operators who are already getting hammered with consolidation by the REITs is alarming, to me at least.

Again, I am not affiliated with either company and have no horse in the race on which company you decide to go with. Choose what you'd like and please update the rest of us on your experience. It's hard to get real user feedback in this space due to self-storage being a niche industry and the more information that's out there the better!

Original Message:
Sent: 10-10-2024 08:58 AM
From: Scott Smith
Subject: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 10/9/2024 4:48:00 PM
From: Dominic Kickbush
Subject: RE: Storable

We have a facility that uses Hummingbird by Tenant Inc., and three that use Sitelink Web Edition. I'm happy to provide the good, bad, and ugly on both of them. I also have slight experience with WebSelfStorage by U-Haul.

------------------------------
Dominic Kickbush
WF Self Storage, LLC.
Wichita Falls TX
(303) 968-5396

Original Message:
Sent: 09-29-2024 10:04 AM
From: David Fisher
Subject: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 9/28/2024 12:00:00 PM
From: David Fisher
Subject: RE: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 9/27/2024 11:33:00 AM
From: Thomas Kent
Subject: RE: Storable

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

------------------------------
Thomas Kent
United Storage of Bowie
Bowie TX
(972) 672-2120

Original Message:
Sent: 09-10-2024 10:39 AM
From: David Fisher
Subject: Storable

As if on queue, I just received another subscription price increase notice from Storable for the same software we had years ago.

Buckle up - this is going to be a lengthy one! I can only speak on Sitelink Web Edition and Hummingbird by Tenant Inc. as I have no experience with Storedge. I'll start with Sitelink Web Edition since most operators have heard of it. I don't have any affiliation with either company - I've just grown frustrated over the years with the lack of technology in self storage.

Sitelink

Pros

It's tried and true. Sitelink has been around for decades and is a staple software in the industry. With that comes excellent third party integration with other vendors and a great tech support infrastructure. I've seen many posts complaining about their support, but I can't stand behind that. Every time one of us calls it only takes a couple of minutes on hold to reach someone. If they are not able to resolve the issue, it's immediately passed to the next level of support and resolved quickly. In a day and age where it takes endless phone trees to finally speak with someone who is on a script, that's pretty good! I've had a few rude interactions with support reps before, but people will be people no matter where you talk to them.

The program is fairly customizable and you can pretty much do anything you need to. Emails are customizable in RTF or HTML, which is a double edged sword if you don't have familiarity with HTML.

It's also very reliable. I can't think of a circumstance where the program didn't work. It has an excellent uptime and has very little bugs. You can tell it's been refined over the years to what it's become today.

Cons

Sounds great doesn't it? The main issue I have with Sitelink is that it was an excellent software, in 2010... it's become extremely outdated and trying to get it to perform modern workflows requires a bunch of third party integrations, which requires more subscriptions. Workflows are fragmented because of this. If I want to be able to text customers that they have a balance due, I have to subscribe to another service provider that integrates with Sitelink. Properly reversing transactions becomes an exercise in logic, instead of just clicking a button and having the proper authority to do so. 

Because of its age, it's also dependent on Windows. That might not be a big deal to some people, but my wife and I are both heavy Mac/iPad users and have to subscribe to a Windows 365 virtual computer in order to run the program. They have a browser based version of the program, called myHub, but it's extremely limited in application. For example, I'm not able to send out letters, change settings, perform overlock/reverse overlocks, etc. through myHub.

Their electronic signature is not mobile friendly. They recently announced an update to their eSign program, but many on the Self Storage Talk forum are reporting that it doesn't work well either and tech support is telling people to revert back to the old one. 70%+ of our online renters are on a mobile device. It should be optimized for mobile. Their online tenant portal is terrible, especially for mobile (unable to update autopay on the mobile version of the site). There are ways around this, namely having a website provider that essentially puts a skin on the user interface, making the UI much more friendly.

The program has pretty much functioned the same for too long to justify the yearly increases. There is very little development, if any, and it scares me to think it will remain the same in 2030. We live in an age where you can buy a car and finance it completely online. 

I go to a particular self storage conference every year and talk with many of the vendors to see what's new, what they're working on, and their overall standing in the many options to choose from. I make it a point to stop by the Storable/Sitelink booth and see if they have an update on the EMV chip readers they've been promising for years and years. Each year I speak with them I get the same answer: it's in beta testing and will release in July of 202X. I'm no software engineer, but it can't be THAT groundbreaking to release a payment terminal. What's even more inexcusable is that the justification I received on why all of their users must switch to their in-house payment processing company years ago is so that the chip readers could be released without having to integrate with dozens of payment processing companies. The irony is that EMV chip technology is becoming outdated with tap to pay! I've just become tired of the same old program year after year when consumer behavior has continued to evolve in the online marketplace.

Hummingbird by Tenant Inc.

Pros

It's modern. It can be accessed from any device connected to the internet because it's browser based. Many of the third party integrations you would need to pay for with Sitelink are already built into the software. Two-way texting is built into the program and a subscription to Hummingbird comes with a free subscription to a limited version of Birdeye (reputation/citation management). It has many third party integrations with other vendors as well (access control, call centers, revenue management, you name it). The software is mostly built vertically, meaning the different pieces all lie within Hummingbird. I can completely customize the website, update meta titles and descriptions, photos, colors, promotions etc. all from within the property management software. This leads to my next point - ease of use and automation. It's a bit hard to put into words, so here's a few theoretical use cases.

Someone walks in and wants to rent a storage unit. You go through the usual information exchange, take a copy of their drivers license, and then you get to the payment. The customer can swipe, insert, or tap their card to pay us. There's no possession of the card by one of our employees. We can then either text or email the contract for signing, or print it out if they prefer a paper copy to read over. 95% of customers are fine doing it on their mobile device because they don't read it anyway. We can also swivel our computer around (touch screen) so that they can sign it on a larger media. It automatically generates the correct contract, autopay authorization if they're on autopay, and the correct insurance sign up form. If they are military, it automatically includes the military addendum. It can do this for businesses and the associated addendum as well. Everything is done for us which minimizes mistakes in the signing process. After a few days, the customer automatically receives a text and email via Birdeye asking them to leave us a review.

Another example: someone calls over the phone to inquire about a storage unit. They want to rent then and there, but they are out of state and their brother is going to be the one unloading into the storage unit. In Hummingbird, I can make a reservation, which autogenerates a reservation confirmation email (which looks beautiful by the way). There's a link in the email to complete the rental online. The customer is able to pick up where we left off, with all the quoted information/promotions, and rent the unit. Hummingbird also has a built in ability to verify their identity - the customer uploads an image of the front/back of their government issued ID as well as a selfie. With machine learning, the website is able to verify if it's a match and release the gate code to the tenant. If it's not a match (which we've tested ourselves), it completes the rental and has them sign their documents, but it does not release the gate code in the move-in confirmation email and instead prompts the customer to stop by the office for their gate code. This can be configured to where you don't allow online verification and have everyone come in the office as well. Why does this matter? Criminals will rent a unit online under a pseudonym and a prepaid debit card in order to get access to the facility. I read a post from someone in Self Storage Talk talking about this exact thing happening. We continue to believe that identity verification is necessary for online rentals. There are work arounds to this in Sitelink with third party website companies (I believe The Storage Group has identity verification as well), but it requires another third party subscription and another company to work with. Our subscription to Hummingbird comes with a beautiful website - a website that I can make on the fly changes to within Hummingbird.

And my last example: we had a customer's ACH auto debit bounce back. I received an email three days after the payment was processed notifying me of the bounced eCheck. I then went into Hummingbird begrudgingly to see what I would have to do to tell the program that the payment was bad and then send an email to the customer. To my surprise, it was already taken care of. The payment was automatically reversed, an NSF fee was automatically added to the ledger, and an email was automatically sent out to the customer notifying them of the chargeback. Chef's kiss. In Sitelink, it can take a week to receive that information back and I have to check for chargebacks manually every single day. I don't know if it's been fixed, but reversing the payment and dealing with the notification and fee is another exercise in logic on how to perform it within the outdated software.

There have also been rumors for some time about a much easier online rental process that will be released sooner or later. I would imagine this would include a shortened rental form, less clicks, and click-wrap document signing instead of an actual eSignature document. All the REIT's have this on their website already for a reason - every step you remove in the rental process has a positive impact on the conversion rate.

In short, Hummingbird just makes things easier and keeps up with a modernizing self-storage tenant base.

Cons

It's a startup software company. This means that small annoying bugs will pop up in rare circumstances that require a call to tech support. Their support team is friendly and competent, but it's not the behemoth that Sitelink/Storable can provide for their three programs. It might take a day or two, but it's eventually resolved.

A few basic features are also missing as of the time of this writing. We own three facilities in another state which sell tons of merchandise every month. We think it's important to keep an accurate count of our inventory in order to prevent or catch employee theft. Hummingbird does not have a way to track inventory counts at the moment. Last I heard it's going to be released in a software update before the end of the year. There also isn't a way to upload the tenant's ID into a profile picture of sorts. You can scan the ID into the tenant's profile, but it does not show up in a profile picture in the sitemap or tenant profile. These are nitpicky, but it would be nice.

Hummingbird isn't mobile device friendly. It works really well on my iPad, but it's basically unusable on a mobile phone.

Summary

In my opinion, they have a few things basic things Hummingbird by Tenant Inc. needs to add in order to make the software complete. We switched one of our facilities to Hummingbird because we saw the trajectory of where Sitelink was going (flat) and where Hummingbird has been going and wanted to give it a test ride. I think it's really close to being a complete package and is already suitable for pretty much everyone, we just tend to nitpick I suppose. I'd highly encourage everyone to ask for a demo from one of their sales reps.

I've never used Storedge in a real storage operation, though I've demoed it quite a few times, and it seems like it leans toward something similar to Hummingbird. The reason we haven't pursued Storedge is because we got pretty turned off from the private equity owned Storable umbrella and its continued growing monopoly in the self-storage vendor space. At this point they own the three major property management software, Sparefoot (which competes with our SEO and gets between us and the customer), PTI, a website company, tenant insurance plans, and on and on. We're throwing in with Hummingbird due to the identity verification and are excited with its future promise. A monopolized vendor market for private operators who are already getting hammered with consolidation by the REITs is alarming, to me at least.

Again, I am not affiliated with either company and have no horse in the race on which company you decide to go with. Choose what you'd like and please update the rest of us on your experience. It's hard to get real user feedback in this space due to self-storage being a niche industry and the more information that's out there the better!

Original Message:
Sent: 10-10-2024 08:58 AM
From: Scott Smith
Subject: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 10/9/2024 4:48:00 PM
From: Dominic Kickbush
Subject: RE: Storable

We have a facility that uses Hummingbird by Tenant Inc., and three that use Sitelink Web Edition. I'm happy to provide the good, bad, and ugly on both of them. I also have slight experience with WebSelfStorage by U-Haul.

------------------------------
Dominic Kickbush
WF Self Storage, LLC.
Wichita Falls TX
(303) 968-5396

Original Message:
Sent: 09-29-2024 10:04 AM
From: David Fisher
Subject: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 9/28/2024 12:00:00 PM
From: David Fisher
Subject: RE: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 9/27/2024 11:33:00 AM
From: Thomas Kent
Subject: RE: Storable

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

------------------------------
Thomas Kent
United Storage of Bowie
Bowie TX
(972) 672-2120

Original Message:
Sent: 09-10-2024 10:39 AM
From: David Fisher
Subject: Storable

Hi Kathy,

The mobile friendly part was referring to the property management software. The software is browser based, so if I go to our internal website's URL on my mobile phone to manage the facility, it's really hard to use. The tenant's experience on our actual website to complete rentals, make online payment, etc. is mobile friendly and optimized. If that were not the case we would have definitely steered away from Hummingbird. It's not the end of the world, since most of your work will happen on a computer, laptop, or tablet. But there are times out on the property where it's useful to use your phone to check on a unit really quick.

I vaguely recall a stat where 60%+ of mobile phone users will back out of a website if it does not load within 3 seconds. Having a mobile friendly and fast website is one of the most important things you should be looking at. Thankfully, we don't have that problem with our site!

As if on queue, I just received another subscription price increase notice from Storable for the same software we had years ago.

Buckle up - this is going to be a lengthy one! I can only speak on Sitelink Web Edition and Hummingbird by Tenant Inc. as I have no experience with Storedge. I'll start with Sitelink Web Edition since most operators have heard of it. I don't have any affiliation with either company - I've just grown frustrated over the years with the lack of technology in self storage.

Sitelink

Pros

It's tried and true. Sitelink has been around for decades and is a staple software in the industry. With that comes excellent third party integration with other vendors and a great tech support infrastructure. I've seen many posts complaining about their support, but I can't stand behind that. Every time one of us calls it only takes a couple of minutes on hold to reach someone. If they are not able to resolve the issue, it's immediately passed to the next level of support and resolved quickly. In a day and age where it takes endless phone trees to finally speak with someone who is on a script, that's pretty good! I've had a few rude interactions with support reps before, but people will be people no matter where you talk to them.

The program is fairly customizable and you can pretty much do anything you need to. Emails are customizable in RTF or HTML, which is a double edged sword if you don't have familiarity with HTML.

It's also very reliable. I can't think of a circumstance where the program didn't work. It has an excellent uptime and has very little bugs. You can tell it's been refined over the years to what it's become today.

Cons

Sounds great doesn't it? The main issue I have with Sitelink is that it was an excellent software, in 2010... it's become extremely outdated and trying to get it to perform modern workflows requires a bunch of third party integrations, which requires more subscriptions. Workflows are fragmented because of this. If I want to be able to text customers that they have a balance due, I have to subscribe to another service provider that integrates with Sitelink. Properly reversing transactions becomes an exercise in logic, instead of just clicking a button and having the proper authority to do so. 

Because of its age, it's also dependent on Windows. That might not be a big deal to some people, but my wife and I are both heavy Mac/iPad users and have to subscribe to a Windows 365 virtual computer in order to run the program. They have a browser based version of the program, called myHub, but it's extremely limited in application. For example, I'm not able to send out letters, change settings, perform overlock/reverse overlocks, etc. through myHub.

Their electronic signature is not mobile friendly. They recently announced an update to their eSign program, but many on the Self Storage Talk forum are reporting that it doesn't work well either and tech support is telling people to revert back to the old one. 70%+ of our online renters are on a mobile device. It should be optimized for mobile. Their online tenant portal is terrible, especially for mobile (unable to update autopay on the mobile version of the site). There are ways around this, namely having a website provider that essentially puts a skin on the user interface, making the UI much more friendly.

The program has pretty much functioned the same for too long to justify the yearly increases. There is very little development, if any, and it scares me to think it will remain the same in 2030. We live in an age where you can buy a car and finance it completely online. 

I go to a particular self storage conference every year and talk with many of the vendors to see what's new, what they're working on, and their overall standing in the many options to choose from. I make it a point to stop by the Storable/Sitelink booth and see if they have an update on the EMV chip readers they've been promising for years and years. Each year I speak with them I get the same answer: it's in beta testing and will release in July of 202X. I'm no software engineer, but it can't be THAT groundbreaking to release a payment terminal. What's even more inexcusable is that the justification I received on why all of their users must switch to their in-house payment processing company years ago is so that the chip readers could be released without having to integrate with dozens of payment processing companies. The irony is that EMV chip technology is becoming outdated with tap to pay! I've just become tired of the same old program year after year when consumer behavior has continued to evolve in the online marketplace.

Hummingbird by Tenant Inc.

Pros

It's modern. It can be accessed from any device connected to the internet because it's browser based. Many of the third party integrations you would need to pay for with Sitelink are already built into the software. Two-way texting is built into the program and a subscription to Hummingbird comes with a free subscription to a limited version of Birdeye (reputation/citation management). It has many third party integrations with other vendors as well (access control, call centers, revenue management, you name it). The software is mostly built vertically, meaning the different pieces all lie within Hummingbird. I can completely customize the website, update meta titles and descriptions, photos, colors, promotions etc. all from within the property management software. This leads to my next point - ease of use and automation. It's a bit hard to put into words, so here's a few theoretical use cases.

Someone walks in and wants to rent a storage unit. You go through the usual information exchange, take a copy of their drivers license, and then you get to the payment. The customer can swipe, insert, or tap their card to pay us. There's no possession of the card by one of our employees. We can then either text or email the contract for signing, or print it out if they prefer a paper copy to read over. 95% of customers are fine doing it on their mobile device because they don't read it anyway. We can also swivel our computer around (touch screen) so that they can sign it on a larger media. It automatically generates the correct contract, autopay authorization if they're on autopay, and the correct insurance sign up form. If they are military, it automatically includes the military addendum. It can do this for businesses and the associated addendum as well. Everything is done for us which minimizes mistakes in the signing process. After a few days, the customer automatically receives a text and email via Birdeye asking them to leave us a review.

Another example: someone calls over the phone to inquire about a storage unit. They want to rent then and there, but they are out of state and their brother is going to be the one unloading into the storage unit. In Hummingbird, I can make a reservation, which autogenerates a reservation confirmation email (which looks beautiful by the way). There's a link in the email to complete the rental online. The customer is able to pick up where we left off, with all the quoted information/promotions, and rent the unit. Hummingbird also has a built in ability to verify their identity - the customer uploads an image of the front/back of their government issued ID as well as a selfie. With machine learning, the website is able to verify if it's a match and release the gate code to the tenant. If it's not a match (which we've tested ourselves), it completes the rental and has them sign their documents, but it does not release the gate code in the move-in confirmation email and instead prompts the customer to stop by the office for their gate code. This can be configured to where you don't allow online verification and have everyone come in the office as well. Why does this matter? Criminals will rent a unit online under a pseudonym and a prepaid debit card in order to get access to the facility. I read a post from someone in Self Storage Talk talking about this exact thing happening. We continue to believe that identity verification is necessary for online rentals. There are work arounds to this in Sitelink with third party website companies (I believe The Storage Group has identity verification as well), but it requires another third party subscription and another company to work with. Our subscription to Hummingbird comes with a beautiful website - a website that I can make on the fly changes to within Hummingbird.

And my last example: we had a customer's ACH auto debit bounce back. I received an email three days after the payment was processed notifying me of the bounced eCheck. I then went into Hummingbird begrudgingly to see what I would have to do to tell the program that the payment was bad and then send an email to the customer. To my surprise, it was already taken care of. The payment was automatically reversed, an NSF fee was automatically added to the ledger, and an email was automatically sent out to the customer notifying them of the chargeback. Chef's kiss. In Sitelink, it can take a week to receive that information back and I have to check for chargebacks manually every single day. I don't know if it's been fixed, but reversing the payment and dealing with the notification and fee is another exercise in logic on how to perform it within the outdated software.

There have also been rumors for some time about a much easier online rental process that will be released sooner or later. I would imagine this would include a shortened rental form, less clicks, and click-wrap document signing instead of an actual eSignature document. All the REIT's have this on their website already for a reason - every step you remove in the rental process has a positive impact on the conversion rate.

In short, Hummingbird just makes things easier and keeps up with a modernizing self-storage tenant base.

Cons

It's a startup software company. This means that small annoying bugs will pop up in rare circumstances that require a call to tech support. Their support team is friendly and competent, but it's not the behemoth that Sitelink/Storable can provide for their three programs. It might take a day or two, but it's eventually resolved.

A few basic features are also missing as of the time of this writing. We own three facilities in another state which sell tons of merchandise every month. We think it's important to keep an accurate count of our inventory in order to prevent or catch employee theft. Hummingbird does not have a way to track inventory counts at the moment. Last I heard it's going to be released in a software update before the end of the year. There also isn't a way to upload the tenant's ID into a profile picture of sorts. You can scan the ID into the tenant's profile, but it does not show up in a profile picture in the sitemap or tenant profile. These are nitpicky, but it would be nice.

Hummingbird isn't mobile device friendly. It works really well on my iPad, but it's basically unusable on a mobile phone.

Summary

In my opinion, they have a few things basic things Hummingbird by Tenant Inc. needs to add in order to make the software complete. We switched one of our facilities to Hummingbird because we saw the trajectory of where Sitelink was going (flat) and where Hummingbird has been going and wanted to give it a test ride. I think it's really close to being a complete package and is already suitable for pretty much everyone, we just tend to nitpick I suppose. I'd highly encourage everyone to ask for a demo from one of their sales reps.

I've never used Storedge in a real storage operation, though I've demoed it quite a few times, and it seems like it leans toward something similar to Hummingbird. The reason we haven't pursued Storedge is because we got pretty turned off from the private equity owned Storable umbrella and its continued growing monopoly in the self-storage vendor space. At this point they own the three major property management software, Sparefoot (which competes with our SEO and gets between us and the customer), PTI, a website company, tenant insurance plans, and on and on. We're throwing in with Hummingbird due to the identity verification and are excited with its future promise. A monopolized vendor market for private operators who are already getting hammered with consolidation by the REITs is alarming, to me at least.

Again, I am not affiliated with either company and have no horse in the race on which company you decide to go with. Choose what you'd like and please update the rest of us on your experience. It's hard to get real user feedback in this space due to self-storage being a niche industry and the more information that's out there the better!

Original Message:
Sent: 10-10-2024 08:58 AM
From: Scott Smith
Subject: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 10/9/2024 4:48:00 PM
From: Dominic Kickbush
Subject: RE: Storable

We have a facility that uses Hummingbird by Tenant Inc., and three that use Sitelink Web Edition. I'm happy to provide the good, bad, and ugly on both of them. I also have slight experience with WebSelfStorage by U-Haul.

------------------------------
Dominic Kickbush
WF Self Storage, LLC.
Wichita Falls TX
(303) 968-5396

Original Message:
Sent: 09-29-2024 10:04 AM
From: David Fisher
Subject: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 9/28/2024 12:00:00 PM
From: David Fisher
Subject: RE: Storable

Original Message:
Sent: 9/27/2024 11:33:00 AM
From: Thomas Kent
Subject: RE: Storable

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

------------------------------
Thomas Kent
United Storage of Bowie
Bowie TX
(972) 672-2120

Original Message:
Sent: 09-10-2024 10:39 AM
From: David Fisher
Subject: Storable

We have a facility that uses Hummingbird by Tenant Inc., and three that use Sitelink Web Edition. I'm happy to provide the good, bad, and ugly on both of them. I also have slight experience with WebSelfStorage by U-Haul.

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

Hi Dominic.  I am currently deciding between Hummingbird, Easy Storage and StoreEdge.  I'd love to hear your opinion based on experience.  Trying to make a decision this week and this is for a new build, our first facility. 

We have a facility that uses Hummingbird by Tenant Inc., and three that use Sitelink Web Edition. I'm happy to provide the good, bad, and ugly on both of them. I also have slight experience with WebSelfStorage by U-Haul.

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.

Hi Dominic.  I am currently deciding between Hummingbird, Easy Storage and StoreEdge.  I'd love to hear your opinion based on experience.  Trying to make a decision this week and this is for a new build, our first facility. 

We have a facility that uses Hummingbird by Tenant Inc., and three that use Sitelink Web Edition. I'm happy to provide the good, bad, and ugly on both of them. I also have slight experience with WebSelfStorage by U-Haul.

This is what drives me nuts.  6 attempts made by the automated software within 8 minutes.  5 failed due to "Lack of funds" and I am charged for each attempt.  The 6 time the funds were there.  REALLY?  Or was it failed network / software attempts?  I am thinking the latter and I still get billed for them.