Self Storage Answering Service | 24/7 Unmanned Site Coverage
Self Storage Operators
Self storage has quietly become an industry where, most hours of the week, there is nobody on the property. Kiosks replaced front desks, one manager covers three sites, and the office closes at six while the gate stays open until nine. The phone is now the property manager — and it rings from a driver sitting in a loaded truck in your lot at seven on a Sunday, from a tenant whose code will not open the gate with a rental truck due back in the morning, and from someone who has just found an overlock on their unit.
Global Empire Corporation answers those calls live in your facility's name, working inside your management platform — checking real availability, completing the move-in, reissuing a gate code where you allow it, escalating a stuck gate to your on-call manager, and routing every delinquency and lien caller to you without ever telling them where their account stands.
- Move-in and reservation calls answered live, including the ones from a driver already sitting in your lot after hours
- Gate and access failures triaged the moment they happen instead of waiting for the office to open
- Daytime overflow while your manager is showing a unit, cutting a lock, or covering another property
- Delinquency, overlock and lien callers verified, logged and routed to you — never given an interpretation of their account
- 1.1B+
- Transactions Processed
- 11+
- Contact Centers Worldwide
- 27
- Service in 27+ Languages
- 35.5k+
- Over 35000 Happy Employees
- 10M+
- New Customers Acquired
A Move-In Is Recurring Revenue Won or Lost in a Single Conversation
Almost every other trade on this list sells a job. You sell a subscription. The caller standing in your lot deciding between your facility and the one two exits down is not worth one transaction — they are worth however many months they stay, and the average tenancy in this business is long enough that the difference between answering and not answering that call compounds for years. They are also the easiest sale you will ever have: they already have the truck, they already have the boxes, and they want to be told a unit is waiting.
The staffing math is what makes this trade different. There is often no one to miss the call in the first place. Your manager is walking a prospect to unit 214, cutting a lock on the far row, covering your second property that day, or gone for the evening while the gate keypad is still live and tenants are still driving in. A voicemail box on a remotely managed site is not a message system — it is a sign in the window saying the office is closed, read by someone who is standing outside it with a truck.
For single-site, multi-site and remotely managed storage operators
What Our Agents Actually Do on a Self Storage Call
Sizing the Unit Without Guessing
What is going into it — a one-bedroom apartment, a three-bedroom house, business inventory, a boat or an RV — does it need climate control, does the caller need drive-up access or is an interior unit fine, and what length are they parking. Get that wrong on the phone and you get a move-out on day three and an argument at the counter.
Reserving and Renting on the Spot
Agents check live inventory in your platform, place the hold or complete the move-in outright, send your lease for electronic signature, and tell the caller your gate hours and exactly what to bring — a lock, ID, and whatever proof of coverage your lease requires. A reservation that exists only in an email is a unit you can rent twice by accident.
Gate Codes and Access Failures
The tenant at the keypad at nine at night is verified against your record first, because a gate code is access to other people's property. Then the agent separates cause: an account condition such as an overlock or expired code, which routes to you, from a genuine keypad or operator fault, which follows your escalation rule — immediately if a tenant or a truck is stuck inside.
Delinquency and Lien Calls, Routed Not Resolved
The agent confirms identity, takes a payment where your platform supports it, and logs the conversation against the account. They do not tell a caller whether the lien process has begun, whether a unit is scheduled for sale, whether a fee can be waived, or that paying tonight stops anything. Those are your determinations under your state's storage facility act.
Damage, Break-In and Site Emergencies
A cut lock, a unit found standing open, water running down an interior corridor, an alarm, someone locked inside the gate after closing. Agents capture the unit and building, whether the tenant is on site, whether police or fire were called, and apply your rule on which of these wake the manager and which wait for the morning walk.
Existing Tenant Service Requests
Transfers to a larger or smaller unit, autopay and expired card updates, protection plan questions, address changes, and move-out notices — taken and timestamped, with the notice terms themselves left to your lease and your manager rather than answered on the phone by someone reading a summary.
Working Inside Your Management Platform, Not on a Message Pad
The failure mode in this trade is the reservation that is not a reservation. An agent takes a name at eight in the evening, an email lands in the office inbox, and at ten the next morning your manager discovers the caller rented down the road at eight-fifteen. Worse is the version where the unit was never held, so it gets promised to two people and one of them arrives with a truck to find it occupied. Neither of those is an answering problem — both are a systems problem.
So agents work in the platform you already run. Storable's SiteLink and storEDGE cover most of the operators we speak to, with Easy Storage Solutions common among smaller independents, Tenant Inc among newer builds, and Yardi Breeze where storage sits alongside other property in the same portfolio. In each case an agent can read live availability and your current rates, create the reservation, and complete the move-in against the same record your manager opens in the morning. If you genuinely run a spreadsheet, a gate controller and a card reader, say so at discovery — we will build the handoff around that rather than pretending there is an integration.
- Reservations and move-ins created directly in SiteLink, storEDGE, Easy Storage Solutions, Tenant Inc or Yardi Breeze
- Live unit availability and current rates read from your platform rather than a printout that went stale on Tuesday
- A gate escalation path defined per site — which access issues an agent may resolve, which wake the on-call manager
- Per-property routing so a multi-site operator's caller reaches an agent who knows which lot they are standing in
The Lien Conversation Belongs to You, Not to the Desk
Self storage is governed by a state self-service storage facility act in most states, and those statutes are where the operator's real exposure lives. They set out how a lien attaches, what late fees an operator may charge, how many notices go out and in what form — some states accept email, others still require mail — and how a sale must be advertised and conducted. They are not uniform, and an operator running properties in more than one state is running more than one set of rules.
That is why the boundary on this desk is drawn hard. Agents take the call, verify the tenant, accept a payment where your platform allows it, and route the conversation to you the same day. They do not tell a caller where their account sits in the lien process, whether a sale will proceed, what a redemption requires, or that a fee is negotiable — because a casual sentence from a phone agent can be quoted back at an operator later. Confirm current requirements with your own counsel, and give us the script boundaries you want enforced before a single delinquency call is answered.
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Frequently asked questions
We have one site with a manager on it all day. Do we actually need this?
Probably not around the clock, no. If a manager is on the property from morning to evening six days a week, your honest gaps are the hours after the office closes while the gate is still open, the day the manager is off, and the twenty minutes they spend walking a prospect to a unit or cutting a lock. That is far cheaper to cover than full 24/7. Pull the unanswered-call log out of your phone system for the last two months, look at the timestamps, and buy those hours. Most single-site operators land on evenings, Sundays and daytime overflow rather than overnight.
Can your agents actually rent a unit, or only take a message?
They can rent it, given access to your platform and a lease the tenant can sign electronically. The agent confirms size and availability against live inventory, states your current rate from the system rather than a printout, takes the tenant details, completes the move-in or places the hold, and sends the e-sign link along with gate hours and what to bring. What an agent will not do is invent availability. If your last ten-by-ten is gone, the caller is offered the next size up or another of your properties — not a promise that falls apart when they arrive.
A tenant's gate code fails at nine at night. What actually happens?
The agent verifies the caller against your tenant record before anything else, because a gate code is access to other people's property. Then they separate the causes: an account condition such as an overlock, a hold or an expired code, which is logged and routed to you rather than resolved on the phone, or a genuine keypad or gate operator fault. A hardware fault with a tenant outside — or a tenant and a rental truck stuck inside — escalates to your on-call contact under the rule you set. Where you allow it, the agent reissues the code and confirms entry before ending the call.
Will you talk to a tenant who is behind on rent?
Yes, courteously, and inside a hard boundary. The agent confirms who they are, takes a payment where your platform supports it, and logs the conversation against the account so your manager sees it in the morning. What the agent never does is interpret the tenant's position — whether the lien process has started, whether the unit is scheduled for sale, whether a fee can be waived, or whether paying today stops anything. Those determinations sit under your state's storage facility act and belong to you. The caller is told plainly that your manager will confirm the details, and it routes the same day.
We run six facilities across three states. How do agents know which one is calling?
Each property gets its own inbound number, so the agent knows the site before the greeting, and each site carries its own profile: office and gate hours, climate-controlled and drive-up availability, RV and boat parking, whether there is a truck on site, and the on-call manager for that address. The agent confirms the property back to the caller anyway, because people routinely dial whichever of your numbers they can find rather than the one they rent at. If a caller wants a size their own site does not have, the agent can place them at another of your properties instead of losing the rental.
Most of our calls come off marketplace listings. Does that change anything?
It changes the intake path, yes. A call arriving on a tracking number from a listing site is a lead you have already paid for, and the caller has usually seen a size and a rate on screen before dialing — they are ringing to confirm the unit is really there and to check your hours before loading a truck. Agents confirm against live inventory, complete the reservation, and tag the source so the move-in is attributed correctly when the invoice comes. Paying for a listing that generates a call and then letting that call ring out to a machine is the worst outcome available to you.
Can you handle the bidder calls during a lien sale week?
Yes, and keeping them off the line your renting prospects are on is most of the value. Bidder calls run a separate script: where the sale is, when it starts, whether it is online or on site, what your posted terms require, and how payment is taken at checkout. Agents work from what you have published and nothing beyond it — no describing contents, no speculating about what is in a unit, no comment on the tenant. If a tenant calls during the same week trying to redeem, that is not a bidder call and it goes straight to you.
What does a self storage answering service cost?
There is no rate card, because the shape of the coverage decides the work. The variables are how many properties you run and how many are unmanned or part-time staffed, which hours you want covered — evenings and Sundays, daytime overflow, or full round-the-clock — whether agents complete move-ins inside your platform or take messages, whether they handle payment and delinquency calls, and whether you need Spanish coverage. A three-site operator buying evening rentals and gate escalation is a different program from a twenty-site portfolio routing its entire call flow through us. We scope it against your call pattern and quote per program.
TESTIMONIALS
Our trusted clients
Global Empire provides reliable 24/7 coverage with live support when it matters most. Their breadth of service, professionalism, and ability to answer calls quickly has made a major difference for our organization. We’re very happy with the partnership and would recommend them confidently.
Wait times no longer exist with the service Global Empire provides. We have cut labor costs dramatically, eliminated overhead from dispatch staffing, and our clients are getting picked up quicker. Spending less while improving service has become the backbone of our business.
We are not only meeting but exceeding our service level objectives. Global Empire resolves many calls without needing a live agent, and the calls that require support are answered quickly and handled faster than before. Their reporting gives us visibility anytime we need it.
We set very challenging service level objectives and insist on those standards being met. At first we were unsure if Global Empire could consistently deliver at that level, but they proved they could. Based on performance and reliability, we know we made the right decision.
Service matters greatly for customer loyalty and experience, and Global Empire provides exactly the professional support required. We’re confident we achieve more value in our contact center because of the strategic partnership and the consistency of their service.
During our recent flood disaster, Global Empire provided messaging services vital to our communications management. Their quick, efficient, and professional response stood out throughout the crisis. In situations like this, service quality is not taken for granted — it’s recognized.
Excellent service — we consistently receive comments about how professional and friendly their agents are. To our customers, it feels seamless and they assume the people answering are part of our in-office team. It has worked out far better than we thought possible.
Global Empire has provided essential call center services for over a decade, responding to medical and non-medical emergencies with accuracy and professionalism. Their commitment to quality and continuous learning is clearly reflected in the service they deliver.
I never realized how much overtime we were paying until we started using Global Empire. We were able to eliminate overtime completely while improving how calls are handled. Now our staff can focus on other important tasks that keep our customers happy.
I wasn’t using all the options Global Empire offered until one of their representatives noticed and reached out. Based on their recommendations, we made several changes that saved money and improved response time. Customers now comment on how efficiently our business runs.
We believe excellent customer service provides the sharpest competitive edge. Global Empire shares that same vision and works closely with us to deliver the best possible service quality. Their partnership supports our ongoing commitment to excellence.
The main reason we work with Global Empire is the ‘red carpet’ treatment. They have the best group of agents I’ve worked with in over 20 years, and they consistently maintain high standards for compliance and customer interactions. They lead by example.
Efficient, professional service with a personal touch. It’s rare to find a provider that consistently delivers both quality and responsiveness at this level.
Over the years I’ve been impressed with the professionally trained staff at Global Empire. Our customers are often anxious or angry, and their team consistently puts them at ease. In two decades, we have never had a customer complaint — which says everything.
As we expanded from Europe into North America, we knew customer service and technical support would be critical to success. We were impressed to learn Global Empire was handling support for a market leader. After working with them, it’s clear why — their service sets the standard.
One of our members struggled with registration and called our toll-free number. The Global Empire agent remained calm, extremely helpful, and professional throughout a long troubleshooting process. Because of that call, the customer remained loyal — and that is a huge asset.
Global Empire is over-delivering on SPH and sales targets. Their performance has helped us reduce acquisition costs significantly, and they have proven to be the missing link in our growth strategy.
I can’t believe we didn’t use Global Empire sooner. Since joining, our order accuracy improved, wait time is virtually gone, and customers receive their orders correctly and on time. This partnership has had a major impact on our national pizza business.
Because of their experience in the energy industry, Global Empire has become a valued marketing partner. Their call center solutions help us acquire customers, retain them, and provide quality service after the sale — 24 hours a day.
Our business relationship with Global Empire has been long and very satisfying. Their employees deserve full credit for the professionalism and consistency they bring to every interaction. I know firsthand how stressful frontline work can be, and their team delivers every time.
Global Empire has been an integral part of our business for years. Our customers expect to speak with someone who can assist immediately, and their team consistently delivers. They maintain professionalism, empathy, and flexibility, making it easy to work together.
With so much outsourcing in the answering services space, it was a relief to find a provider that is truly efficient. The pricing is excellent, onboarding was smooth, and our clients were far happier speaking to a live operator instead of voicemail.
We have partnered with Global Empire for over 15 years and they remain a crucial part of our 24/7 operations. They support multiple sites across states, and we couldn’t be happier with their service, reliability, and long-term consistency.