An Inefficient Parking Process Hurts Everyone
The customer experience is the most important part of the parking industry. Psychologically, if people have an unpleasant experience, they are far more likely to never return to your business. Slow ingress and egress – the act of entering and exiting, respectively – are the principal causes of a poor customer experience.
The loss of customers due to slow ingress and egress can hurt your business, its revenue, and its reputation. Here are five tips for improving your parking efficiency to protect your business and make the customer experience the best it can be.
The Main Causes of Slow Ingress and Egress
To improve your parking lot efficiency, first, you must discover any root causes that are slowing the entry and exit processes. For example, one root cause could be improper labeling within the parking asset, causing your customers to become confused without proper directional guidance.
Another cause may be ineffective or confusing payment options. Without guidance on parking and paying, customers may take a long time to pay or may become annoyed and leave altogether.
Overcrowding may also create delays within and around the parking asset, especially during events. Identifying and addressing the causes of sluggish turnover in and around your assets is the first step toward combating slowdowns.
Display Important Info on Prominent Signs
When designing and operating your parking asset, it is critical that your customer understands how to navigate to a parking space. Effective signage is a cornerstone of efficient parking management. Providing customers with easy-to-understand instructions about where to park and how to pay is essential.
Metal display signs can supply guidance with important information, such as the floor level of the asset, the entry and exit points, locations to pay or instructions for paying via an app, and where parkers can find assistance.
Digital wayfinding technology can further improve the parking experience by displaying the number of available spaces, current parking rates, and other pertinent real-time data for customers before they even enter your asset. The result is a faster ingress process and fewer cars looking for parking at a given time.
Embrace Automated Yield Management
In parking assets, excess demand is often the cause of slowdowns during entry and exit. When too many people are circling to try to find a parking spot, the entire parking process slows down, and customers become frustrated.
Using an Automated Yield Management (AYM) system is an effective way to control the supply and demand for parking spots within your asset. The use of AYM results in increased parking revenue while balancing parking demand.
AYM systems use real-time data to implement dynamic pricing in your parking asset, increasing prices during high occupancy periods and decreasing them during low demand.
Designate Rideshare Drop-off Areas
With more people than ever using smartphones and smartphone apps, catering to rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft can provide a boon for your business. Rideshares often choose to drop off passengers in local parking lots. Even though they only stay for a short period, they can greatly interrupt traffic flow.
Designating an area in front of your asset for rideshares to drop off and pick up riders can make it more convenient for rideshare drivers and passengers while cutting down on traffic in and around your parking assets. With less traffic, ingress and egress times will decrease for your paying customers.
Utilize a Quick, User-Friendly Payment Device
To speed up incoming and outgoing traffic in your parking asset, employ a user-friendly, speedy payment device to make it simple for your team to accept payments and for your customers to make payments. The payment device should accept a wide variety of payment types, from cash to card to contactless payments. It should also have integrations with other payment, ticketing, and parking platforms and apps.
ParkHub offers a mobile point-of-sale payment device, Prime, that provides convenience for workers and customers. Prime offers numerous integrations and reduces cash slippage on the backend through the collection of real-time parking data, all while providing a speedy transactional experience.
Learn How ParkHub Can Help Improve Your Parking Efficiency
If you want to learn more about how to speed up your parking process and provide the best parking experience for your patrons, book a demo with ParkHub and speak to a parking expert today. ParkHub has the know-how and technology solutions to help you formulate the best parking strategy.