Caddy Moving, a rapidly growing on-demand moving help service, engaged Flux Bucket for product strategy consulting, resulting in the identification of a unique market opportunity: self-storage customers. This new opportunity would give Caddy access to a completely new customer base: folks who have just purchased a storage unit and may need help moving their things in.
After validating the opportunity through interviews and research, Flux Bucket set out to design, develop, and launch an MVP product that would enable Caddy to capture this new market space while helping storage companies generate new revenue.
The Opportunity
A proven solution in 60 days
In just sixty days, Caddy was gearing up for one of the largest annual conferences in the storage unit space.
Our mission: to offer Caddy's moving services to new customers just after they've purchased a storage unit.
We teamed up with some friendly early adopter storage companies for development. They were our gateway, giving us the keys to their systems and serving as our go-to guides throughout the project.
My Role
I was the lead designer on this project, working for Flux Bucket, a product design agency. We were a small team, so I owned and led all aspects of the project.
Challenges
Creating a modern user experience for self-storage
In Caddy's core business, their stellar user experience was a key differentiator. Bringing that same experience into the world of self-storage had it's challenges.
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Integration
Integrating into storage management systems wasn't possible within our timeline. The limited integration capabilities across major systems were a setback, but recognizing this constraint early was beneficial for project strategy.
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Personalization
We knew a personalized and well-timed message to the customer increased chances of conversion. Relying on access to customer information from several different systems would be challenging.
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Communication Preferences
Customer communication preferences varied by demographics: urban areas favored texts and emails, while rural regions preferred calls and emails, our research found.
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Avoiding the "Spam" Feel
To avoid appearing as spam, Caddy's messaging needed strategic positioning and design, clearly identifying us as partners of the customer's chosen storage company, not strangers.
MVP #1
Schedule Your Move-In Date
We determined that the optimal moment to engage customers with additional assistance was immediately following their storage unit purchase. Our approach was to first provide value rather than inundating them with overtly sales-driven messages.
By offering the convenience of scheduling a move-in date, we aimed to enhance the customer experience with a seamless continuation of the concierge service, offering reassurance through a confirmed booking.
It's at the completion of this process, a point where customers had already experienced tangible benefits, that we'd introduce our Caddy offer, creating a more natural and receptive environment for our proposition.
Finding Signal Without Integration
Facing integration challenges with storage systems for real-time new customer updates, we innovated a simpler solution.
By being CC'd on system-generated welcome emails sent to new customers, we gained immediate insight into each new sign-up.
This method provided us with essential details like the customer's name, unit size, and storage company, enabling us to tailor the customer experience more effectively.
Workflow
- Caddy receives copy of the new storage unit purchase email
- The Caddy agent copies customer contact information into an Airtable document
- Customer receives email and text drip messages with a link to schedule their move-in
- Customer books a move-in date
- We'd present the Caddy offer, which would take the customer to an existing Caddy checkout workflow
The entire user experience was designed to track opens, clicks, and progress through the journey. This was important to understand where customers were dropping off.
Whatch a demo where I show the user experience, back-end automation, and tracking capabilities.
Impact
As this was completely new territory, we didn't have a baseline to compare our results to. The team agreed the results were positive and encouraging to continue.
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Quick Launch
It took us just two weeks to design, launch, and test the MVP
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3 Storage Partners
We launched with three storage companies, representing different management systems and customer demographics
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15% Conversion Rate
Sent messages to over 80 customers, and saw a 15% conversion rate leading to Caddy reservations
An unexpected pivot
Two weeks after launching our MVP, Caddy secured a major contract with a leading national storage company operating across the US. This milestone was a cause for celebration, yet it presented a new challenge.
The company was apprehensive about granting us the access needed for our MVP's email-based process. They required system updates and policy changes to ensure customer privacy before we could proceed.
Initially disheartened, we quickly recognized the value of this partnership and decided to adapt our strategy accordingly.
MVP #2
Embedded Marketing
As the storage conference approached, we realized a key insight:
Storage employees were organically promoting Caddy to customers through calls, emails, texts, and in-person exchanges.
These informal, genuine recommendations revealed that our messaging wasn't always reaching potential customers at the optimal time. It was incredibly effective when customers were made aware that the storage company offers move-in labor, whenver they're ready for it.
We shifted to a strategy focused on increasing customer awareness of our new service through various channels and enabling storage company teams to seamlessly integrate our marketing messages.
Approach
Recognizing that each storage company controlled their own marketing materials, from website content to email templates, we opted to empower their internal teams for implementation.
Our approach involved creating easily integratable content snippets for websites, emails, and texts. These snippets, featuring call-to-action links to Caddy and personalized for optimal customer experience, were designed for seamless adoption by the storage teams.
Goals
Affiliate Portal
Develop a central hub for storage companies to access and use embeddable snippets, each featuring unique links tailored to their specific locations
Easy Implementation
Implementing Caddy messaging needed to be straightforward for storage teams, especially considering the complexity of navigating storage management systems
Reduce Friction
Create a seamless user experience by eliminating the need to re-enter information, like the storage company's address in Caddy's checkout
Caddy Affiliate Portal
Partner Onboarding
We streamlined the onboarding of storage companies by giving them portal access and advising on optimal placement of Caddy messaging on their websites and transactional communications. This enabled quick integration, often within hours, and directed traffic towards Caddy.
Built using Bubble
Using a low-code solution enabled our teams to rapidly build, gather feedback, and make changes between onboarding calls the very same day.
Impact & Learning
Impact & Results
We were able to build, test, and launch the new MVP in time for Caddy's storage conference. As a result, they were able to show early results and secure more storage partnerships around the country.
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200+ Storage Facilities
Three weeks after launching, we integrated Caddy links into websites and messaging for 200+ storage facilities
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Revenue Generation
Immediately generated revenue for Caddy and their storage partners, strengthening the business partnership and their willingness to invest in integration
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Self-Service Onboarding
We transitioned from manual to self-serve onboarding, significantly cutting implementation time and reducing scheduling bottlenecks
Other folks will simply build what you tell them, but Michael will push back to make sure it's well thought out. The biggest opportunity the low-code approach has created for Caddy is the ability to go through discovery while building, creating a huge advantage.
Zach Richards
CEO & Founder @ Caddy Moving
