How do you ensure payment compliance on your car park? Paid parking on a site can be an incredible revenue generator. From multi-storey car parks to retail sites and medical facilities, charging for parking can help boost your bottom line. Issues arise when parking revenues start to dip. Poor payment compliance can be a real thorn in the side of a car park and needs to be dealt with effectively. We’re taking a closer look at how you identify the problem and the steps you can take to improve payment compliance on your car park. Explore more Is payment compliance a problem? The first step in combating a problem on a parking site is to understand the extent of it. The capacity data captured by ANPR cameras, coupled with revenue information from payment kiosks can help you to ascertain if motorists are paying the right amount for their parking, or not paying at all. You might discover you have a full car park, but parking revenues don’t match capacity. This shows you have a serious problem with abuse in your car park. Listen to your customers and those using your car park. Are there complaints about your payment options? Are people frustrated at not getting change or want to pay with a card? The level of complaints can be a clear indicator that you need to do something about your payment solutions. A lack of payment can seriously impact your revenue streams, affecting your ability to maintain a site and potentially putting the growth of your business at risk. Sites that have addressed their payment compliance issues have seen huge increases in their parking revenues, some by as much as 40%. Modernise your options One way to boost revenues on your car park and improve payment compliance is to increase the number of ways visitors can pay. From installing extra payment kiosks on your site to provide greater coverage and convenience, to enabling customers to pay using card, notes and get change from machines, flexibility is key. By providing more options, you eliminate a lot of the barriers that hinder payment compliance. Faulty technology and outdated machines can frustrate motorists and prevent you from generating the revenue you should from your site. Modern machines offer flexibility in payment choice and are more reliable, reducing the number of faults and downtime on-site drastically. Many modern solutions also utilise remote diagnostics, allowing parking management companies to monitor performance and even fix faults from a distance, helping to keep the options in place on a car park up and running. Modern solutions can help support motorists using your car park. Clearer displays, more initiative interfaces and using ANPR to match vehicle registrations can help prevent manual input errors, reducing time-consuming issues and complaints on your car park. Improving your solutions can also be a huge boost to accessibility on your site. Improved facilities and payment kiosks, as well as contactless and autopay options, help to provide motorists with disabilities several ways to use a car park and pay for their parking more conveniently. Embrace touchless technology That focus on modernising doesn’t stop at your on-foot payment kiosks. The way consumers pay for services has changed, particularly due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, more than ever, it’s important that businesses adapt to their changing customer requirements, and that starts in the car park. With the increased focus on social distancing and avoiding contact with communal spaces, one way to increase the flexibility of payment on your site is to include touchless options. There are a number of these that can transform your car park: Pre-booking One way to ensure payment compliance is to take payment before a visitor has even arrived. Pre-booking allows a motorist to find a place to park, arrange the duration of their stay and pay well in advance. This can help in planning a trip and eliminating a parking headache from organising travel. Adopting this technology allows you to attract new audiences and increased footfall to the surrounding area. This is a fantastic option for sites that have noticeable peaks and troughs in their capacity as you can turn those quieter periods into a way to generate additional parking revenue. Autopay One way to guarantee payment compliance is to automate it. Motorists register with a car park, and then they are charged for their parking automatically upon leaving. This is what’s known as frictionless parking – any points of contention are removed, and a motorist has nothing to worry about as payment is based on duration (tracked by ANPR), and they’re billed automatically. There’s no need to try and find correct change or queue to use kiosks, simply drive in and drive out. Providing this service is a fantastic way to build customer loyalty, as you have registered motorists frequenting the site due to the positive parking experience. Pay-by-phone We are seeing a shift in society towards being cashless. Meaning motorists don’t always have change or banknotes on them. Providing motorists with the ability to pay over the phone makes sense, as while we’re less likely to carry cash, people are seldom without their mobile phone. Motorists arrive in a car park, find a space and then using a unique identification number for that site pay for their parking using an app, website or over the phone. This is a solution that offers motorists increased flexibility as they can easily extend their stay, which is perfect for a trip when plans might change. Helping to combat poor payment compliance If your site is struggling to generate revenue, it can be due to poor payment compliance. This is often a sign that aspects of your car park can be improved, from modernising on-foot payment solutions to embracing a host of newer touchless options. At Parkingeye, we understand the importance of getting the most from your car park. Improving payment compliance can be a huge revenue boost and providing a more pleasurable parking experience can help drive increased footfall to your site and surrounding businesses. Our experts can work with you to identify the issues that are hindering your car park and implement the solutions that are going to help drive improved payment compliance and boost your bottom line. How can we help you transform your parking? The services you offer to visitors can vary and improve the performance of a site in several ways. However, those services are always going to be much more effective when they work together. A single supplier – particularly one where products are interoperable – can work with you to find the solutions that will have the biggest impact on your site, not just in terms of combating abuse but also in improving the efficiency of your day-to-day operations. Finding a parking management supplier who’s in a position to offer everything in one place can reduce admin for your team, boost performance on your site, provide a holistic data picture and create a parking experience that has a more positive impact on your visitors. If you would like to find out more about our services, please head over to our car park management page for more information, and get in touch with us today! Find out more Take a look at more blogs How does ANPR work, and how does it benefit your car park? Automatic Number Plate Recognition, or ANPR has been a mainstay of car park management for several years, but it does... Read more Why you need to embrace parking apps As a society, we have all become increasingly reliant on smart devices. It’s easy to see why. Access to information,... Read more Cashless Payments and Mobile Apps: Revolutionising Car Park Transactions Habits change over time, in 2022 50% of all transactions in the UK were made via debit card, and 37%... Read more
