During this Quick Question series, our parking experts share their advice on how to create the perfect customer journey and how to build strong client relationships. From using the latest technology and following consumer trends to implementing parking guidance, contactless payment, or reservations - there are plenty of steps to developing a positive and lasting impression for drivers. And, we hear top tips on how to create winning partnerships with clients right from the initial contact to the successful completion of a project.
Ben Fox, Head of Marketing at ParkVia
“Strong customer journeys tend to follow UX and UI best practices. If you are unfamiliar with these then I recommend reading Ben Shneiderman’s Eight Golden Rules of Design Interface or Jakob Nielsen’s Usability Heuristics for User Interface. The summary is that you need to provide customers with just the right amount of information at the right time, and you do this in an intuitive way. If each step is optimized, then the user can find you on their preferred platform, drive out of the car park, and know that they will park there again.”
Joe Survance, Senior Vice President of Sales at Cleverciti
“Effortless, quick, seamless, accurate. These words roll off the tongue so easily, but how do you pull everything together in a single mobility ecosystem? When you boil it down it’s about effortlessly getting from point a to point b quickly and seamlessly. So for me, the perfect customer journey is very simple, teleportation from my home to any destination I choose. Until then, the second-best journey relies on smart mobility ecosystems and accurate parking space management that communicates accurate space availability to 100% of the active vehicles. This door to space guidance for parking is needed to enhance the customer journey.”
Lex Blum, Regional Sales Manager at ParkMobile
“The perfect customer journey starts with building a customer’s trust. For example, Amazon has mastered the perfect customer journey because time and time again, we as consumers trust that the product we buy online will arrive in less than two days and do exactly as it says. Parking usually has a negative connotation, making it a difficult industry to provide customers with the perfect journey. At ParkMobile we build customer trust by providing a safe and easy to use payment platform that helps to alleviate some of the pain of paying for parking.”
Peter Alcock, Head of Product Marketing at NMI
“At NMI we suggest that contactless payment is the single most important feature in any new pay and display installations, with minimal touchpoints, and of course, no pin entry. Even better, the latest pay-on-foot solutions we support use not only contactless payment technology but sophisticated tokenization of a payment card, eliminating paper tickets. This allows drivers to tap in and tap out of a car park completely touch-free -the gold standard in parking convenience.”
Olga Ménissez, Global Offer Manager Vending & Parking at Ingenico Enterprise Retail
“Today technology is moving faster than ever. In the modern world, the customer wants to enjoy the latest innovation and have a perfect customer journey. In payment, the ability to adapt the payment solution to the business needs and the payment methods of the customer choice is paramount to creating the perfect journey. And, the perfect customer journey is the best in class customer experience, that creates positive emotions. So, the best payment experience is the invisible payment or that uses the latest technological innovation.”
Maarten Mijwaart, Business Developer at Tattile
“At Tattile we say that for a perfect customer journey there are two main ingredients. One, the client must feel in control of the process, and two the process needs to be smooth, it needs to be free of unnecessary hiccups, delays, or confusing and frustrating interactions. ANPR for example is more used in ticketless parking operations, you drive in, your drive out, and then you get billed afterward. The customer journey does not get much better than that.”
Matias Laine, Sales Manager at Portier
“For a car driver, the first impression of the customer journey is built on clear and visible wayfinding to the premises, followed by continuous wayfinding to the free spots or special areas like EV chargers or disabled spaces. Leaving the premises should be as guided as the arrival as easy departure completes the customer’s journey with the right experience and they will most likely visit the business again. First and last impression matters.”
Joan Sarda, Marketing Manager at Circontrol
“Accompanying the customer the entire time that he or she is in our car park creates a perfect experience. Once a driver is in the car park all the traffic signals are seen, the light in the corridors is bright and the guidance systems lead the driver to the most suitable free slot. Moreover, in the case of electric vehicles, the guidance systems should lead the driver to the chargers, that could even be prebooked and only require self-identification to start charging. And by the time of picking up the car, the charging bill should also have been integrated with the payment machine systems.”
Pol Barneda, General Manager North America at Quercus Technologies
“We understand that perfection comes with details, and to get those details every inch counts. At Quercus we cover all those inches from the entry and exit points to the bay, constantly improving all the features that will make the whole experience perfect, like fast access, increased mobility and security, ticketless options and effective guidance systems, or any of the car finder solutions.”
Tammy Baker, Vice President of Client Experience at Parker Technology
“The perfect client journey is one that can tailor to each client as they onboard. Everyone chooses you for a different reason, they have different needs, different expectations for service, communication, partnership. It’s important to have the relationships established to keep those data points updated as the business changes, and to make sure that you utilize that information with all your communications and product offerings.”
Jeff Johnson, Vice President of Enterprise Sales and Solutions at FlashParking
“So the customer journey for the enterprise client is a unique one because a very large part of it is about educating what is now possible in PARCS and mobility technology. Characteristics such as being cloud-based, direct to consumer, having easy to make hardware and extensibility into the mobility ecosystem, with strategic integrations are now possible in the world of parking assets.
“Once clients understand what’s possible, it’s a fairly quick process to create a solution to optimize how they currently operate and then look at it in a more advanced way as it extends into new forms of revenue in the mobility ecosystem. But finally, no customer journey is ever complete, in a world where technology is evolving exponentially it’s imperative to establish regular communication rhythms and assign account management to ensure that clients know what has been included in the latest update, what’s available with the latest mobile integration and how to ensure that their technology investments continue to be congruent with the evolution of technology.”
Tanja Hess, Sales Export Manager at nagels
“For us, the perfect customer journey is defined by transparency and easy accessibility of information, professionalism, and especially personal consultations from experienced specialists. You have to know your potential customers and their needs, as well as the market, to supply the perfect, sometimes even bespoke, product. As a certified access media supplier, with more than 30 years of experience, we know the OEMs' requirements, as well as the customers’ needs, and can function as a neutral interface to find the perfect solution.”
Pierre-Antoine Fosseux, Area Sales Manager at Bluechips Microhouse Co. Ltd
“The best journey for my customer is when they hear about my company for the first time, when they discuss with us, when they place a PO, get delivered, and still have a super tough device. The best journey is when we make sure that at each step our customer has the right answer and the best experience. The journey is not necessarily linear so let’s set up a test, and let’s experience the best.”
