Introducing: Michael Webster- Storefirst Manager, Blackburn Branch

My career path started with an apprenticeship at North Lancs Training Group. Now I’ve worked my way up to being the Manager at Storefirst in Blackburn. I love my job, I’ve had a great career journey and I’ve never looked back.

My day to day duties

I oversee all the daily tasks making sure everything runs smoothly. My duties begin with opening the store in the morning. Then I oversee all customer enquiries. That can be on the telephone, or people who just walk in off the street. The majority of our enquiries come from the website so it’s my responsibility to respond to those quickly.

We’ve got all sorts of customers here, from the small eBay businesses to the large commercial companies. There are plenty of people that actually run their business from here and that’s part of what makes this job so interesting.

We’ve got free superfast wifi, boardrooms, hot desks, and even a canteen. We offer all sorts of facilities for people to run a business from here. We also offer great security features with 24/7 cameras and individual key fobs for every customer.

We’ve got all the facilities for our customers to spend the day working from here. In some ways, it’s like a second home. We also receive deliveries here on behalf of our customers, free of charge. We try to go beyond what other storage companies offer.

All sorts of businesses

We get all sorts of companies here and we’ve got some really longstanding customers. Some of our clients have been here since we first opened in 2011.

We’ve got a mix of household customers and business clients. If people are moving house and they need somewhere to put there belongings temporarily, we can assist them with that. With the business customers, we can help them cut their overheads because it’s just one storage fee that covers everything.

We’ve had small businesses that started here, and we’ve seen them grow. For example, we’ve got a carpet fitter that came here 6 years ago. Originally, he said he only needed the unit for a few months!

2020 has been one of our busiest periods. People haven’t been able to travel and get out so they’ve been spending their money in other ways. That includes improving their homes and we’ve been here to give them a helping hand looking after their possessions, keeping things safe.

I started with a modern apprenticeship, an NVQ in Customer Service. I didn’t go to university, instead, I chose to jump straight in at the deep end and got a job. I wanted to earn while I learned and get on with something practical.

To progress from being an apprentice to a store manager has been a wonderful journey and a great experience.

For more information about Storefirst visit www.storefirst.com or contact us here: www.storefirst.com/contact-us