It seems that one of the challenging demands of living and working in a changing industry is being a great customer or purchaser.  We will get to the details of that in just a moment, but first, we must understand the process.  Almost everything we touch in our day-to-day lives has changed over the last 30 years.  Some changes have been made behind the scenes, and the customer really does not see or feel the impact.   

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Let’s use a grocery store for example.  Most of us don’t realize it, but the equipment used in field planting and corn picking has undergone tremendous changes over the last 40 years. How the packages move through the distribution network and ultimately to the store has changed.  The inventory, ordering, and accountability have changed a lot over the last 40 years, and mostly in the last 10 to 15 years.  But when I walk into a grocery store today, I don’t really see that much difference between the store of today and the store of 40 years ago.  40 years ago, my wife sent me to the store for milk and eggs and today, it’s the same, I’m sent to the store for milk and eggs. For me, the customer, there have really only been two changes that affect my ability to get out of the store with my purchases.   

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First, at the exit, I have a choice: I can either self-check out or go through the normal checkout, just like 40 years ago.  When purchasing the self-checkout equipment, the grocery store owners had to choose a product based on its ability to monitor for mistakes that could occur at checkout.  The customer would always have help and a way to solve problems, which should be expected when processing over 1,000 customers per day.  If I went through the traditional checkout process, there was a cashier to eliminate the types of problems generally associated with unskilled customers.   

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Second is the payment method.  Forty years ago, I paid either with cash or a check.  Both payment methods were started and ended by a cashier.  Not much room for error or misunderstanding.  Now, cash is still there, but most transactions are made with a credit card.  Now, I, the customer, have to complete the process.  My credit card can be swiped, inserted, or tapped.  With this process starting and ending with me, the customer, there are increased possibilities that there will be issues.  However, they are instantly corrected because the highly trained cashier is right there.   

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All of the grocery stores want to have a process that gets me, the typical or maybe not so typical customer, processed out correctly and at the lowest costs.  To capture my business, they have reviewed the existing process and decided to purchase equipment that their customers can use while maintaining a high level of customer service. My point is this: the grocery store went through an immense period of innovation, grocers carefully analyzed all available products, and equipment was chosen to maximize customer satisfaction, even for a $10.71 purchase of milk and eggs.   

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Now, let’s move into the manufacturing and purchasing decisions that have brought us to where we are in the parking business, where customers routinely spend more than they do on milk and eggs. We are manufacturing equipment with a high failure rate and installing it in locations where the parking operation has little or no assistance.  We are also implementing the new processes in locations with little or no instructions for customers entering a parking area.   If the customer makes a mistake and just leaves without paying because there is no way to pay or understand the payment process, we hunt them down, send them a large bill with a penalty, and expect them to like it.   

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We were recently conducting a financial review of a parking location in a northeastern city that had LPR as the primary entry and exit process.  During the three days we were on site, our review team entered and exited the facility many times. Every single time we passed the gate arms, there was a customer at the exit, many times more than one, who could not pay and exit.  This was also a very busy facility where a large number of the customers were one-time visitors, so they were not regularly exposed to the payment process.  When our team exited the facility, we queued up behind a customer who was desperately trying to complete a payment and get on with their day. Remember, this customer most likely had no fault; he was probably just ignorant of the specific process of the specific equipment and this specific location. The customer service for both sets of customers – the repeat and first timers - was not at an acceptable level.   

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There is a restaurant where I occasionally meet friends for lunch.  Behind the restaurant area, there is a row of single-space parking meters.  The meters have a color screen that provides you, the customer, with the information you need to pay, then shows how much you paid, and shows the completed transaction.  Where I am, usually between the hours of 12:30 and 3 PM, trying to pay, the sun is right behind me, and the screen is impossible to read.  I look around and notice others who are having the same problem.  I also notice that when I exit, there are many customers with tickets.  What kind of procurement decision is this: the parking manager placed equipment in a location that would destroy customer service? 

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As clients and parking operations managers, we must do a better job of investigating the promises, benefits, and challenges of all parking equipment.  As TPN Consulting, we see the results of these decisions every day.  Not necessarily because they are bad decisions, but because of the promise of the vendors who have spent a lot of money creating salespeople and marketing campaigns that convince you that your customer service will go up, not down.

 

A few months ago, I was at a convention where there was a head-of-the-class session for each parking vertical.  I enjoyed listening to the conversations between these professionals. They spoke about the challenges they faced with their customers, employees, and internal processes, as well as the different PARCS they had purchased.     The interesting part was the level of complaints about the service of a system that they had purchased because they felt they had no choice.   

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The message of this article is this: we always have a choice.  We can do a better job of researching the system before we purchase. We can hire expert help from people who are in the business of making those objective observations. We can decide to work hard to train our staff and our customers to use the system to a high level of service. We can advocate for our facilities to have equipment that allows staff to provide excellent customer service. We can use critical thinking to decide which system to purchase for our market. 

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In a changing industry, innovation alone is not progress. The parking customer should not be the quality-control mechanism for untested equipment, unclear processes, or optimistic vendor promises. If grocery stores can justify rigorous analysis, thoughtful design, and human support for a $10 purchase, then our industry has an obligation to do the same for transactions that cost more and carry far greater frustration when they fail. The future of parking will not be defined by how quickly we adopt new technology, but by how carefully we choose it, how honestly we evaluate it, and how consistently we protect the customer experience at every touchpoint.