• StorQuest brought in an AI voice agent, Sarah Quinn, to work alongside its 24-hour call center across 270 self-storage properties in 18 states.
  
  

• Sarah Quinn now answers and fully resolves 50–70% of inbound calls on her own, before a live agent ever gets involved.
  
  

• StorQuest's previous 40-second average wait, already ahead of most of the industry, has effectively been replaced by an immediate answer, every time.
  
  

• The team has seen conversion on live phone calls increase since launch, turning more of every answered call into a rental.
  
  

StorQuest Self Storage, part of the William Warren Group, operates 270 self-storage properties across 18 states and three RV parks, backed by more than 500 employees and a 24-hour call center that handles sales and support for the entire portfolio. 

The gap: a good wait time still isn't the same as no wait time

Forty seconds doesn't sound like much. For most self-storage operators, it would be a good problem to have. That was StorQuest's average time to reach a live agent before Uniti, according to Wenxuan Fan, StorQuest's manager of data intelligence and strategy. It was already better than most of the industry.

But Fan draws a hard line between good and solved.

"There's a huge difference between a good waiting time and no waiting time. That's really something AI can do that's very hard to replicate without AI."

The bigger issue wasn't speed. It was volume. Run a call center across 270 properties and most of what comes in is the same handful of questions on repeat: a gate code, a due date, whether a unit is still accessible. None of it takes judgment. All of it takes people, and enough of them to match the call volume at every hour.

For StorQuest, that math has a real number attached. Norm Shore, VP of Operations, puts a price on what a missed call actually costs.

"Depending on the size and cost of that unit, you could be looking at anywhere between $2,000 and $4,000 in value for that customer. Losing a customer because you didn't get to them in time, that's too costly to let happen."

Every call that rings through to a hold queue, or goes unanswered at 4am, is a shot at $2,000 to $4,000 in rental value. And it doesn't just disappear. It goes to whoever picks up next.

Bringing Sarah Quinn onto the call center

StorQuest deployed Sarah Quinn, a Uniti AI voice agent, to answer first on every call. Not to replace the call center. To sit in front of it. Sarah Quinn listens for what the caller needs, resolves it directly when she can, and hands off to a live agent when she can't.

In practice, that covers most of the volume.

"50, 60, 70% of calls are answered and solved by Sarah Quinn. So there's no calls waiting in the queue. Customers aren't on hold for 30 seconds to two minutes." — Wenxuan Fan

One moment from the rollout stuck with the team. A caller switched languages mid-conversation, and Sarah Quinn switched with him.

"I remember one time we had a customer who called in, and halfway through, he started speaking his mother tongue, and she just switched to match it." — Wenxuan Fan

Run 270 properties across 18 states and that range matters. Handling a gate code question in English and a billing question in another language, on the same call, without a transfer, is the difference between a resolved customer and one who hangs up frustrated.

StorQuest didn't take the decision lightly. The call center wasn't broken. It was the backbone of the business, and everyone knew it.

"We have a lot of stores over here and we run a very tight ship. We are very cautious of making any changes that impact our customer front. Our current process has been ironclad and performing really well throughout years. We really don't want to disrupt things unless it's really adding value." — Wenxuan Fan

That caution is exactly why the rollout matters here. StorQuest wasn't fixing something that was failing. They were closing the last gap in something that already worked.

The results: every call gets answered, more of them turn into rentals

Since launch, StorQuest has effectively closed its call queue. Every inbound call now gets an immediate response, at 4am, at 11pm, during a spike in volume. Sometimes that's Sarah Quinn. Sometimes it's a live agent, when the situation calls for one.

"It provides you an opportunity to not miss a phone call. And that's the number one thing. Whether it's 4:00 in the morning or 11 o'clock at night, people who are in need of storage need an answer and a solution." — Norm Shore

Conversion on live phone calls has increased since Sarah Quinn came online. The calls that reach a human now are the ones already qualified and ready to rent, not the ones stuck waiting behind a queue.

Why StorQuest chose Uniti

For Fan, the decision came down to more than the technology.

"When it comes to AI voice agents there's competition in the market. From our experience, we really try to value partnership. We're investing in the relationship, not just in the product as it is today, but for its potential as well." — Wenxuan Fan

Norm sees it as bigger than StorQuest. He frames it as where the whole industry is headed.

"If you're not using an AI agent, you should recognize that the next two or three generations of self-storage customers are going to want that level of technology. The self-storage industry has been slow to move on technology. This gives you the opportunity to remain competitive." — Norm Shore

And for both of them, Sarah Quinn was never meant to replace the call center. She's a second layer on top of it.

"The number one goal was for us to not miss any phone calls, and to make sure every customer who calls speaks to someone who can solve their storage needs. We look at it as an 'and,' not an 'or.' Sarah Quinn and our call center agents together make us a better provider of service to our customers." — Norm Shore

Fan puts it more simply. Ask him if he'd recommend it, and this is the closest thing to a straight answer:

"People who are in need of storage need an answer and a solution. Sarah Quinn and our call center agents make us a better provider of service to our customers. You'd be somewhat foolish to not be at least curious to look into an AI agent, and Uniti, for this service." — Wenxuan Fan