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Our Parking Industry has always been and is now more than ever a support industry.  Our core principle is to “provide a parking space for time”.  Our challenge is to be sure customers know a space is there, it is clean, well lit, secure, and is sold at the correct price.  Our Parking Industry requires that we take great care of all of our customers. As parking operators, we should always stand in our facility, on the entry and exit islands, communicate through all available channels to each customer and continually review rates.  We need to fully understand the customer experience to provide a parking space.   

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However, the parking industry does not require us to be a technology company. As technology changes, we must not neglect or ignore our customers' needs and expectations.  To meet all of the demands listed above, there are technologies in this new high-tech world we live in that can assist us in providing each: technology can assist the customer finding our location; technology can assist the customer entering the facility; technology can assist the customer with pricing; technology can assist the customer with the payment process. Finally, technology can assist the customer with information and communication! Today, technology scaffolds a higher level of security throughout the parking process, which is very compelling to today’s customers.  

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In short, technology assists us in providing the core principles listed above, but we are still a support business that provides services to our customers.  TPN is in the field daily, and our team members evaluate the customer service levels offered in garages nationwide.  We are starting to see parking companies that are more focused on being technology companies than service providers.  Technology is becoming increasingly a part of everything we do, and it might be easy for us to spend so much time trying to install technology that we forget that we are a service provider for a support industry first. We should work toward understanding how technology fits into that scope.   

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As we try to maintain our position as a service business in a support role, we mustn’t forget who our customers are.  That is a common, simple statement, but ignoring or not knowing customers happens more than you think.  As we slip more and more technology into the parking world, the 20- and 30-year-old parkers are on top of this and get most (but not all) of it quickly.  However, they are not our only customers - only about 30%.  The 40- and 50-year-olds grew up in the technology world but they are already behind the constant change; they know it, but are not as fast at it, and they represent about 45% of parkers.  The 60 and 70-year-olds represent the other 25%, and they do their best.  Our customers, whom we support and provide the highest possible level of service, have representatives from all of those groups.  Our customers in a commercial office building garage represent the percentages listed above in mostly the same numbers.  If we are a medical center or a hospital, the numbers slide considerably up the scale.  A technological process that fits the 20- to 50-year-olds will cause concerns for the average medical customer.  The average customer going to sporting events is actually in the middle of that age range 35 to 65 years old.  As we move away from the commercial office market, we have a larger percentage of each of the groups that seldom park in places with paid parking, so this is all new to those groups of varied-aged customers.  I could continue, but I think you get the message.  

 

Also, in one final word, with this big focus on technology, everyone thinks the revenue loss should be much smaller. Surprisingly, revenue loss in this technology-saturated industry is much larger… but has taken on a different form. TPN is on top of it.