Somebody is storing the contents of a three bedroom house. He looks at a page listing units in square feet, picks one that sounds about right, and arrives with a van and a half more than it holds.
He is now standing in a corridor at four on a Friday afternoon with nowhere to put a wardrobe.
Why customers cannot judge this
Because nobody buys space by area. They have a van, a house and a pile of things, and square footage means nothing to any of it.
Describe sizes in contents, not measurements
A few boxes, a small room, a one bedroom flat, a family home. With an item list for each. It is the only description customers can use.
Give an item list per size
Sofa, double bed, wardrobe, washing machine, twelve boxes. People can count their own possessions against a list and cannot against an area.
Publish photographs of filled units
Not empty ones. An empty unit looks enormous and a filled one tells the truth. It is the most useful image a facility can publish.
Explain height
That units stack and that the usable volume is more than the floor suggests, with what can safely be stacked. Customers ignore the space above their heads.
Explain access requirements
That leaving a walkway costs space and that a unit packed solid means unpacking everything to reach one box. Customers who need regular access need a larger unit.
Ask what is being stored
Furniture, boxes, business stock, documents or a vehicle. The answer changes the recommendation more than the property size does, which is the ground in storage unit size questions that stall bookings.
Ask how long for
Because a short term store can be packed tightly and a long term one with periodic access cannot.
Recommend a size and say why
Rather than listing options. Customers want a recommendation from somebody who has seen a thousand of these.
Explain that they can move
To a larger or smaller unit, what it involves and what it costs. Removing the fear of choosing wrong is what closes the booking.
Offer to look at photographs
Of the rooms or the van. Two photographs give a far better estimate than any description and it takes a customer a minute.
Explain what cannot be stored
Before they arrive with it, which is the practical constraint every facility has, and the same publishing discipline as in planning permission questions and honest answers for a different trade.
Explain what a unit is like inside
Customers picture a garage and find a corridor, a lift, a door width and a lighting arrangement they did not expect. Describing the access route, the door size, whether there is power and how a trolley reaches the unit prevents the moment where somebody realises a sofa will not go round a corner.
Publish the notice and exit terms alongside
Because customers ask both together, as in notice period and moving out questions storage customers ask.
Answer the size question at any hour
It is asked in the evening, mid move, and the facility that answers gets the booking, which is the automation in automating the questions you answer over and over.
Getting started
Publish sizes as item lists with photographs of filled units, recommend from what they are storing and answer at any hour, building the guide with the AI FAQ generator. SpideyChat for self storage answers from your published pages, plans are on the pricing page, and the chatbot ROI calculator works through the numbers.