Chris Marr, president and CEO of CubeSmart (NYSE: CUBE), participated in a video interview in conjunction with Nareit’s REITweek: Virtual Investor Conference (being held June 2-4).
Marr discussed CubeSmart’s rapid design of a completely online rental process for its customers. “That has been a fabulous six-week implementation and so far, results have been incredibly positive,” he said.
Going forward, Marr said CubeSmart is looking at a variety of other ways to create a contactless environment for its customers.
“The idea of using your smartphone—or even leaving it in your pocket, and being able to access the gate, the doors, everything associated with your experience without having to touch a keypad or otherwise having to open or close anything—is the type of thing we’re focusing on in this climate,” Marr said.
Meanwhile, Marr stressed that self-storage has always been an “incredibly resilient” asset class. “We may see even more movement on the other side of this as folks just want a change of pace…that would really benefit our product type,” he said.