The Parking Industry Must Invest In Technology
I started this article more then a year ago and then it fell by the wayside. Today the idea of the Parking Industry investing in technology has never been more pressing. As the World moves slowly into some phase of COVID-19 recovery it has become increasingly more important to be able to provide services to your customers online.
“Contactless parking” is the current catch phrase, but the ability to offer this service online has been around for years now. Time to wrap up this article and share.
The significant increase in commercial property development in the past five years has led to a surge in the number of parking lots. These types of parking structures are necessary additions to both commercial and residential developments, especially in urban settings with mixed-used developments.
According to a report published by IBISWORLD, in the past 5 years, the parking industry has grown by nearly 2.8 percent translating to $10 billion in revenues. And within the same time period, commercial businesses have grown by 2.6 percent with a growth rate of 1.8 percent in their number of employees.
As competition and demand for parking structures increase, it is important for the industry players to maximize their investment in technology and minimize their innovation debt. This is perhaps the best strategy to compete with a competitive edge. And this is clearly evident from the fact that the largest market share holders in the US parking industry like SP Plus Corporation and Indigo are innovation- driven; so why not you?
Here are some more reasons to avoid innovation debt and invest in technology:
Technology is undoubtedly changing the processes of the parking industry. It is making operational work at all levels more efficient, faster, and friendlier. Therefore, if you want to match the industry pace, your business needs to be abreast with the changing trends and that calls for a gradual adoption of new technology. You need to eliminate innovation debt from your business equation in order to succeed and capture a bigger market share.
Keep Up With Changing Trends
A good example for staying abreast with the changing trends is the OPS-COM system. It is a fully integrated parking and violations platform that allows you to smoothly integrate all authorized parkers, term, temp, parking app paid, to a full enforcement suite issues warnings, and violations. It also automatically looks up license plate history. This system truly shows that we’re at the pinnacle of parking technology. Now if you don’t update your operations with this or such types of technologies that are revolutionizing the parking industry, then you might be a full generation behind in your service. This can hurt your business tremendously in terms of profits and business productivity.
Redefine Your Work Approach
New technology in parking resources can add value to your business by redefining your work approach. If you have a large parking company you could easily be having three to four generations of staff working under one roof. Instead of following the typical work approach where the younger staff learns from the oldest and continues to rely on systems that are now obsolete, it is best to introduce new technologies to your business landscape and train everyone to use the latest hardware and software options so that all generations can work efficiently, accept change and deliver their best.
Deliver Superior Customer Experience
The success of your business is highly-dependent on customer experience. Therefore, to deliver superior customer experience, you need to exceed your customers’ expectations. To make this happen, use the power of new tech. That’s right; offer better service experience through mobile apps allowing for reservations and payments, and access control systems for better traffic flow at your parking facility so that drivers can find a space and park their cars easily.
So, if you want to run a profitable business with a growing customer base, the gradual adoption of new tech is the way to go. This is even more necessary today, as the push is on for changes to support a better post COVID-19 offering. The Parking Industry needs to provide an online service that is beneficial to both their customers and their staff, reducing touch-points and maximizing the contactless parking offerings.
