How can your car park keep visitors coming back?

For most businesses it’s absolutely crucial to create a sense of loyalty, not just to a brand or product, but even to a specific branch or location.

Finding ways to get visitors to come back is no easy feat, but making your car park a destination that supports their needs and is easy to access can have a massive impact on the rest of your business.

Office worker crossing the road in a busy city centre

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Space to park

One of the key things that make a car park an attractive prospect is actually being able to use it.

A car park that’s riddled with issues, like congestion, payment problems or widespread misuse, immediately puts potential visitors off. Then, to make matters worse, the impression it leaves on anyone using it is likely to be a poor one.

That means that many people who use a site could be less than inclined to return, that not only impacts your business in turn of lost revenue and reduced sales, but it can also actively benefit your competition by driving potential customers to them.

Putting the solutions in place to remove congestion and misuse of spaces on your car park gives you a stronger foundation to build on, one that lets you actually enhance the experience of using your site instead of just ensuring a quality baseline.

Space turnover

Traffic jams are frustrating at the best of times, when someone is at the absolute extreme end of their journey, either right as they start or just as it ends, getting stuck can be infuriating.

Your car park, and by association, the rest of your business, can’t afford to have something that impacts customer experience that negatively associated with it.

Space turnover, the rate that your car park spaces are used at, is important. If your car park has a low space turnover, it creates issues as people arrive on your car park and can’t find a place to park. So, they will either circle the site, getting in the way of people leaving and arriving or leave and go elsewhere, which can restrict sales and revenue for your business.

Increasing space turnover has the opposite effect, it means more people can use your services and park more easily. As a result, this increases footfall, lifts sales, and improves revenue.

Accessible spaces

Once a visitor can get onto your car park the next step in making sure they want to come back is providing spaces that benefit them. Most car parks feature some sort of priority bay, whether that’s a Blue Badge space, EV charging station or even a parent & child space.

Those are in place to make life easier for people. If those spaces are being misused, they create complaints, or in the case of EV chargers actively restrict a revenue stream for your business.

Protecting those spaces, such as through a Bay Management solution, helps make sure those crucial areas of your car park are available when they are needed. This goes a long way towards improving the experience people have using your car park, and, if someone knows that their needs are being taken care of, are much more likely to return.

Technically, a car park counts as one of the facilities your site offers and as such, should be treated with respect as it’s one that most of your guests will make use of. Not only should it be clean and tidy, but easy to navigate and free of congestion and abuse. This makes access easier, eliminates issues that keep your staff from focusing on the rest of their duties and prevents a source of complaints from guests.

As the first thing someone often sees, your hotel car park needs to be a strong reflection of what your hotel offers. From a well-maintained car park that highlights that you take pride in your facilities, to offering accessible parking and services that emphasise that you are committed to making a visitor’s stay as pleasant as possible.

Your parking builds an image of your site and helps to create that initial sense of trust and confidence that the rest of a guest’s stay should only ever build upon.

Easy payments and enhanced services

Paying for parking shouldn’t be a source of frustration. Your visitors and potential customers should be able to manage their stay with minimal fuss.

Making interacting with your car park easier should be a key part of any car park management strategy. Whether that’s app-based payments, autopay, permits or pre-booking. There are lots of ways to pay for parking, and different methods are going to suit different people.

Choice is vital, as allowing visitors to use the method that suits them creates an image of a business that’s taken their requirements to heart. Making using a site easier is a fantastic way to reinforce the decision to come back.

The benefit of repeat visits

More people coming back to your car park can have a transformative effect on your business. From the increase in footfall to the lift in revenue more people accessing your services can have.

Repeat visits build a greater sense of familiarity with, and loyalty to your brand. Providing extra services such as EV charging and parcel lockers create other reasons for people to come back and increase the extra services that visitors can access.

Those extra services create a point of difference that helps you stand apart from your competition while building upon the opportunities you have in increase revenue.

Helping you make more of your car park.

Making your car park a better place to visit is something we understand all too well. We have worked across thousands of businesses and car parks, helping them to transform their car parks into sites which enhance the services a business offers and provides a user experience people want to go back to, because of its ease and how that supports the rest of a journey.

To find out more about how Parkingeye can help your business to enhance its parking and put the solutions in place that will delight your visitors, get in touch using the form.