Being shortlisted as finalist in two categories of the BFA (British Franchise Association) Franchise Awards, the Digital Transformation and the Emerging Franchisor categories was a boost to the team. Winning Emerging Franchisor awards was an incredible achievement and fabulous proof of concept for the company.
easyStorage is a BFA Associate Member, and joined the BFA in 2019. The BFA runs the awards annually to showcase some of franchising’s best performing brands across multiple areas of business – pretty much the ‘Oscars’ of the franchising industry.
This year saw a record number of entries across all categories, demonstrating the strength and resilience of franchising sector at a challenging time for most independent businesses.
Whilst easyStorage seems familiar and well established (the easy Brand helps, we’re certain), the company was only founded in 2017 in an office in Hangar Lane. The Hangar Lane storage facility proved a huge success, and the next stage was to prove that the business could work as a franchise. Two proof of concept ‘franchises’ were started outside of London, both of which continue to do well.
From the outset, the company values (trust, transparency, fairness, empathy, and one team) have been living values, rather than PR driven ‘fluff’, and company decisions are based in these. The Emerging Franchisor award that easyStorage has won is as much proof of placing values first as a sustainable strategy, as of the business idea itself.
The ‘Emerging Franchisor Award’ is all about “Building Foundations for Success”, and the BFA noted that all three finalists (easyStorage, Pass the Keys and Visiting Angels) have shown a real passion for their brand and for franchising from day one.
For the company directors, it’s clearly been about having the right people on board: the right marketing director, storage experts, transport and operations managers and more: “As our franchisees grow their businesses and become more sophisticated in their operations, bringing with it higher complexity challenges, it becomes ever more integral to provide accurate timely information to support decisions. We are developing our technology to meet these needs, adding more people to the support teams next year.”
According to the BFA, easyStorage won because: “easyStorage had big plans from the start, and has brought years of experience into their set up and rolled their sleeves up to prove the concept before going to market. The business is investing in significant monitoring and cost saving mechanisms for the network and are building platforms that will see effective support and service which can be extended to an international network. They are a franchisor with a long-term growth strategy that builds value as they grow their network.”
Bearing that in mind, it’s perhaps easy to understand why easyStorage was also a finalist for another its BFA Award….
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The BFA was judging award entrants on “Driving Transformational Change in a Digital Age” – investing in digital development, services or systems that will deliver long term sustained benefits to the network.
Collecting belongings from customers, carefully loading into storage pods (easyPods), carried on tailor-built vans seems very ‘real World’ but easyStorage was competing with incredible competition from excellent fellow finalists Pitman Training and Swimtime. easyStorage has developed VAULT, a bespoke platform for managing collections, deliveries and storage, and payments are collected automatically each month.
easyStorage has 22 franchises and growing! Each franchise territory consists of at least 600,000 dwellings and the franchisors responsibilities include running a crew and ensuring customers receive a great service. (The easyStorage franchise network is proud of their ‘Excellent’ rating on Trustpilot - currently 4.8/5 based on more than 3,700 genuine customer reviews.)
No previous storage or commercial vehicle experience is required by franchisees as full training is provided.
Digital marketing is managed centrally by an in-house team of leaders in the field. Constant data analysis and powerful partnership programmes generate customer leads. This comprehensive central sales support leaves franchisees free to focus on running their businesses.
Storage is a growing sector, expected to continue rising, and franchisees benefit from the instantly recognisable ‘easy’ brand.
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Our storage packages have the added benefit of free removal of your items, saving you up to £1,000. All you need to do is pack your items (or we can pack for you, supplying boxes and packing material) and we’ll pick-up your items and store them in our safe and secure easyStorage facility. Then when you are ready, we’ll deliver them wherever you need us to. You just need to give us two working days’ notice. Perfect if you are moving house, running out of space, or just need somewhere to store your stuff.
Our storage plans provide you with a cost-effective alternative to renting your own lock-up storage space as we’ll only charge you for the storage space you need, making it cheaper for you.
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