5 simple tips to “happify”​ your customers’​ parking experience 😁 😁 😁

Thought of the day for my fellow parking industry gurus… What have you done to make a difference to happify your customers’ parking experience…?

Hope we’ve been able to add a 😁 to your day.

Article takes 3-4 minutes to read, approx 760 words

On average, drivers will waste 17 hours a year looking for a parking spot. [source:]

Your customers’ parking experience leaves a lasting impression on them. If done well, it can result in loyal and repeat usage.

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Here are 5 simple, smart and cost-effective parking tips to improve your customers’ experience.

1.   Communicate

• Have clear succinct prominent signage on your rates, policies, payment methods and the rules. People want to know the rules BEFORE they enter the parking area.
• Make it as simple as possible!
• Have the information easily accessible online for those who want to pre-plan their parking spot, ask questions and make an informed choice based on all the information presented to them.
• The more ways you find to communicate with your customers, the better the experience they will have. Use your social media channels to the max!

2. Make it Easy

• Offer your customers a seamless transaction. Make it stress-free! Parking is so often such a hassle for many; it takes up mental energy which we would all rather spend elsewhere. Provide them with the complete solution.
• How? Reduce friction in the process. Make it easy. Enable options to pay via an app, on their phone, by simply entering registration details. Better still establish a portal for your customers to be able to pre-pay with booking a bay online to reserve their parking spot.  
• Don’t over complicate things – just get it done!

   3. Listen to your customers’ feedback

• Granted we are all pretty pro-active with seeking customer feedback. But just make sure that there is someone who actually reviews and analyses the feedback.
• Implement a plan to take corrective action based on this feedback to improve the customer experience.
• Recurring problems can often be easily resolved by simply reviewing repeating customer issues.
• Actioning feedback is a cost-effective way to improve your branding and service offering to your market; it’s also providing you with an incredible database. And we all know how powerful a good current database is when used effectively.

4. Be responsive to your customers – address the problem.

• Glitches and things going wrong occasionally are important – that’s how we all learn and improve. Use the lesson learned to eliminate the issue so it doesn’t happen again.
• Be responsive. Be professional. Address problems when they occur. Acknowledge your customer’s pain point and patience. And then consider offering them something as a gesture for their time, and for helping you learn about an issue in your business. Something YOU can do to improve from THEIR experience.
• Follow up and ensure the issue is resolved – no one is perfect but in this age of automation and machine learning by simply giving a human response will ensure your customers will long remember that!

Happy customer = return customer = better business and stress-free parking!

5. Be innovative in your solutions!

• It’s so easy to fall into the complacent mindset of “we’ve always done it that way” to resist change. After all, there’s business risk involved in changing the status quo. But these six little words can be very dangerous to the long term success of a business. 
• We all know the parking industry is not a particularly cool, sexy, or charismatic industry, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be innovative! As parking aficionados, let’s do more than just sit back on our laurels but instead do more to implement changes to be more customer-centric & efficient.
• Parking industry participants – Let’s listen to parking customers and create new ideas, new solutions to better their needs. Parking is about the speed, efficiency, and agility of accessing available parking and minimizing the time it takes to do this.
• Parking apps and book a bays are certainly innovative as they allow the improved utilization of existing parking resources. Win / win = happy customer = guaranteed repeat usage.

So over to you parking industry participants!

What innovative solutions do you offer your customers? Would love you to share them with us in the comments below! We’re always keen to learn, grow and share!

At thatsmyspot.com.au we are constantly analyzing our customer feedback on our service and products to provide a better parking experience improved and innovative solutions and initiate thoughts and discussions in the Parking Solutions space.

Talking about innovation, the team at Radiance Car Wash has caught our eye as being our favourite new innovative product in the marketplace. In response to preserving the earth’s most precious resource, water, the team at Radiance Car Wash has developed a water-free 15minute instant car wash.

Subscribe to our newsletter via our website for a chance to win one of 5 Radiance Car Wash kits that James at Radiance Car Wash is so generously giving away.

Angelique Mentis is founder of thatsmyspot.com.au which offers simple and smart parking solutions to take the stress out of your parking pain. Angelique can be found at angelique@thatsmyspot.com.au