The Metro Storage already had a call centre supporting the business during set hours. The challenge was what happened when that call centre closed for the day.
Outside those hours, customers were being directed to an answering machine asking them to call back during opening hours. For a self-storage business, that creates a significant risk. People often enquire when they are moving house, renovating, clearing space, storing business stock, or trying to solve a problem quickly outside the traditional 9 to 5 window.
If they cannot get a useful response immediately, they rarely wait. They move on to the next storage provider.
That gap in coverage meant potential revenue was being lost simply because enquiries were arriving at the wrong time. Metro Storage needed a way to keep conversations going, capture enquiries instantly, and provide helpful responses even when the office was closed.
As Metro Storage explained:
“We have a call centre who answers the calls for us, but they are only during certain hours. So we had a bit of a gap in our customer service, which was out of hours.”
Before Voice AI, that out-of-hours gap was handled by voicemail.
“We just had an answering machine service that just says, give us a call back during our opening hours.”
Metro Storage wanted a better way to support customers when the team and call centre were unavailable. The aim was not to replace the people already handling calls. It was to make sure more callers were acknowledged, understood, and passed back to the team with the right information.
Nurtur’s solution
Metro Storage introduced Nurtur Conversational AI to handle out-of-hours and overflow calls, ensuring customers could still speak to the business even when the main call centre was unavailable.
The AI assistant was designed to operate within a clear and controlled scope. Rather than trying to replace the team, it focused on understanding why someone was calling, capturing the right information, identifying the relevant storage location, and collecting everything needed for an effective follow-up.
For new storage enquiries, the AI could capture key details including the preferred store location, intended move-in date, estimated unit size, what the customer needed to store, expected storage duration, and whether they wanted a callback or store viewing arranged.
For existing customer queries, the AI was able to identify the nature of the request, whether related to accounts, access, move-outs, removals, packaging, complaints, or general support, and pass structured notes back to the Metro Storage team.
Importantly, the system was designed with clear boundaries. It did not confirm live availability, take payments, provide account balances, or commit to pricing. Where a team member needed to verify information, the AI simply captured the enquiry and ensured it was handed over accurately and clearly for follow-up.
Metro Storage summed up the value simply:
“This AI gives us the ability to fully qualify customers so that we can give them a call back knowing exactly what they’re looking for.”
The results
Since going live two months ago, Metro Storage’s Voice AI has received 155 phone calls.
Of those calls, 81% were successfully handled within the AI assistant’s agreed scope, covering a mixture of new storage enquiries captured and customer queries managed effectively out of hours.
That means approximately 126 customer conversations were successfully supported by the AI assistant during the first two months alone.
Instead of reaching an answering machine and potentially going elsewhere, customers were able to interact with the business, provide their details, and continue their enquiry journey even when the main team was unavailable.
For Metro Storage, this created a more responsive customer experience while helping ensure valuable opportunities were not being lost outside normal operating hours
For Metro Storage, the biggest impact has been lead capture.
“Being able to automatically capture qualified leads really has been key.”
The reason is clear. Once Metro Storage has the customer’s details and understands why they called, the team can follow up properly. Without that information, the business is relying on the customer to call back later.
As Metro Storage put it:
“Being able to capture leads and contact them the next day and having those contact details is invaluable.”
In a competitive storage market, that matters.
“Without that, customers can just go elsewhere to competition.”
Supporting the team and improving the customer journey
Metro Storage has implemented Voice AI to support its existing team and call centre operations, not replace them.
The AI provides customers with a clearer and more helpful experience when calling outside normal operating hours. Instead of reaching a voicemail or being asked to call back later, callers can explain what they need, share their details, and feel confident that their enquiry has been captured properly for follow-up.
It also gives the Metro Storage team a stronger starting point when responding to enquiries. Staff can immediately see who called, what the enquiry related to, which storage location was relevant, and what action needs to happen next.
By capturing structured information upfront, the AI helps reduce missed opportunities, improves continuity between teams, and allows follow-up conversations to begin with more context and less friction for the customer.
Metro Storage said:
“We just want it to make things smoother and easier.”
They also recognised that capturing more enquiries can naturally create more follow-up for the team, but in the right way.
“Our ops team who have to make the calls have got a bit more work, but it’s a good thing.”
That is the value of the AI. It brings more of the right conversations back into the business.
Customer response
One of the common concerns around Voice AI is how customers will react.
Metro Storage has not seen negative feedback from customers using the service.
“No, we’ve not had anything negative come through.”
The team were also impressed by how natural the AI sounded during the initial demonstration and setup.
“We were really impressed with how natural it sounded.”
They added:
“We were surprised at the capabilities of it and how natural it can sound and how much it can help the customers.”
The wider value
Metro Storage’s use of Conversational AI demonstrates a practical and measured way to improve call handling without adding unnecessary complexity to the business.
The challenge was never a lack of staff or customer support infrastructure. Metro Storage already had an established team and call centre in place. The real issue was that customer enquiries do not only happen during convenient business hours.
Voice AI helped bridge that gap.
In the first two months alone, the system handled 155 calls, with 81% successfully captured, qualified, routed, or managed within the agreed scope.
For Metro Storage, that has meant more enquiries retained, more customer issues logged correctly, and fewer callers being left with nothing more than an answering machine.
Rather than replacing people, the technology has strengthened the overall customer journey by ensuring conversations can continue even when the main team is unavailable.
As Metro Storage explained:
“It’s bridging that gap from what the call centre is not able to do.”
That gap is especially important at weekends.
“Especially at the weekend, because the call centre is not open on a Sunday. So that’s a whole day of potentially losing customers calling up.”
Summary
Metro Storage introduced Nurtur Conversational AI to strengthen its out-of-hours call handling and reduce the risk of missing valuable enquiries when the main call centre was closed.
Since launch, the AI assistant has handled 155 calls in just two months, with 81% successfully managed within the agreed scope.
The system captures caller details, qualifies new storage enquiries, routes customer queries appropriately, and provides the Metro Storage team with clear, structured information for effective follow-up.
By supporting the existing team rather than replacing it, Voice AI has helped Metro Storage create a more responsive customer experience while ensuring fewer opportunities are lost outside normal operating hours.
For a business where speed, service and timely follow-up matter, the benefit is straightforward: more callers are being captured when the team or call centre cannot answer.
