What is your payment experience saying to your customers?

As a business, one of your key priorities is making sure the visitor experience is a good one. But the car park and, in particular, the payment options are often overlooked as an integral part of that experience.

Paying for parking is often the first and last thing a visitor experiences on your site. Get that wrong, and the visit is already having issues before it’s even started.

The numbers back this up. 63% of UK drivers said poor car park conditions affect their perception of a business, and 65% would park elsewhere if they knew about poor facilities beforehand.

We recently published a piece looking at five areas where simplifying your parking estate has the biggest impact. Visitor experience was the one that kept coming back in every conversation.

Defining the friction in your parking payments

Paying for parking is a typical part of many journeys, but there are several elements that can add friction to that interaction.

Queues at kiosks during busy periods. Screens that are hard to read on sunny days. Parents entering registration numbers one-handed while juggling children. These are all typical frustrations that people don’t often complain about. They just don’t come back.

There are ways to reduce that friction without changing what’s already working. Technology changes and people’s expectations and requirements shift in line with that, which is why, if your infrastructure hasn’t been updated in a while, looking at digital-first options could help.

What is digital-first payment?

Adding digital-first options to your car park means giving people more options to cut down on queues and the flexibility to manage their parking in the way that best suits them.

Paying on a phone isn’t a novelty anymore. It’s how most visitors already handle everything else in their day. A Talking Retail survey in 2024 highlighted that 72% of shoppers opt for a digital receipt instead of traditional methods.

Think about those friction points we outlined earlier. Being able to pay using a phone removes the need to queue, or pre-booking lets a parent get on with their trip without having the extra fuss.

That doesn’t mean that existing options need to be removed, they will still be a preference for some and in order to make your car park as accessible to people as possible that flexibility in options is key.

Using data to drive decisions

Car parks gather infrastructure over time as people’s needs and technology evolve. This is why changing from one system to another isn’t as simple as switching something off.

User behaviour data is crucial, and the insight you gather from ANPR and how your car park is utilised allows you to make informed decisions about the payment options you offer in your car park.

For example, looking at the data, you might find that only a few kiosks across your site are used, and when they are, people pay by card rather than cash. This could be a sign to reduce the number of kiosks and introduce the extra flexibility that a digital platform provides.

It’s important to be able to benchmark too. At Parkingeye, we manage over 4,000 sites, which equate to billions of points of data that can be used to assess site and solution performance and make the right choices for your car park.

Remember, you aren’t eliminating the kiosks or the payment options, but you are removing instances where they don’t necessarily help your business.

The commercial impact

Small changes in a car park can have a major impact on your business. People using your site don’t want to be concerned about their parking, a well-maintained, modern car park says a lot about a business and goes a long way to putting someone’s mind at ease.

Research by the WJ Group found that 70% of drivers are willing to leave a vehicle longer when they see the car park as a safe, well-maintained space. That figure shoots up to 91% with drivers under 35.

That willingness to stay longer is key. More time on-site means more time browsing, interacting, eating, drinking and shopping. Reducing the friction in your payment process creates that same sense of ease.

Your payment experience shapes how visitors see your business. Getting it right is one of the simplest ways to make sure the rest of the visit starts well.

If you’d like to talk about what that could look like on your site, get in touch.

Sources

1 BBC investigation, June 2023. Data collated from 244 councils across England. Reported by BM Magazine.

2 Component-level estimate based on standby power draw, screen operation, thermal printing, card processing and heating elements. Energy conversion factor: DESNZ 2025 UK Greenhouse Gas Reporting Conversion Factors (0.19553 kg CO₂e per kWh).

3 Business Waste UK; thermal paper chemical classification per Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and multiple peer-reviewed studies including Bernier & Vandenberg (2017), PLOS ONE.

4 Cornwall Council recycling guidance; multiple UK local authority waste guidelines.

5 Talking Retail, 2024 survey; CXM Today.

6 Global E-waste Monitor 2024, published by ITU and UNITAR. Only 22.3% of global e-waste is formally collected and recycled.

7 BBC investigation, June 2023; Local Government Association statement on 3G network shutdown impact.