A Custom Booking Plugin Built For A Self Storage Company
Client Overview
Self Storage Centre runs storage facilities across Warrington Latchford, Warrington Central, Winsford and Arley, with units for homes, businesses, students, cars and motorbikes. Bloom has looked after their website and marketing for years.
The Problem
Every booking took place on a separate Stora website. Customers clicked “Book Now” on the Self Storage Centre site, landed on a different page with a different look, and finished the booking there. Ben Scott, who runs the business, wanted customers to book without leaving the site.
Stora is the system the team uses to run the business, so replacing it wasn’t an option. The booking process had to move onto the website while Stora carried on running everything behind it.
What We Did
Stora gave us their documentation. Our developer used it to build a custom WordPress plugin from scratch, designed around how Self Storage Centre takes bookings.
- A booking process on their own site. Customers choose a location, see unit sizes and prices, and reserve from the Self Storage Centre website. The booking page is live at selfstoragecentre.co.uk/book-storage
- Connected to Stora. Bookings go through Stora’s API, so the team keeps managing everything in the system they already use.
- Matched to the brand. The plugin sits inside the site’s design, so it looks and feels like one business, on desktop and mobile.
- Built for all four sites. Warrington Latchford, Warrington Central, Winsford and Arley are covered.
- Tracking set up. Key button clicks in the booking journey are recorded in Google Analytics, so we can see how people use it.
Existing customers still sign in to their account through Stora, as before.
Results
Customers now book on Self Storage Centre’s own website, from first click to confirmation.
Before, every booking meant leaving the site for a page that looked like a different business. Now the whole journey happens in one place, with the same branding and phone numbers throughout. It works as well on a phone as on a desktop, which matters for people booking in the middle of a house move.
The team’s day-to-day hasn’t changed. Stora still runs the business behind the scenes, so they keep working in the system they already know. Because the plugin was built around how Self Storage Centre works, the booking journey can change as the business does, rather than being limited to what a third-party booking page allows.
Google Analytics now shows where people drop off in the booking journey, which gives us something concrete to improve.
Client Testimonial
That looks good. So it’s like free-flowing then, isn’t it? Just keeps us on the website and it’s, you know, it’s good… looks very good and clean, thanks, Rog, well done. That’s good.
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