Stef's Parking Solution

Hello!

Since many of you are smack dab in the middle of permit season, I thought it would be approporiate to re-post something our own Maggie Vercoe, Director of Client Engagement wrote last year:

We are in the thick of Parking Permit Season!  It requires capitalization because of the sheer craziness of it.  Universities especially across the country are bracing themselves for the onslaught of students, staff, faculty, etc to hit their offices and their web pages to get their prime parking permits.

If you are just reading this, and haven't begun your planning, you might be in trouble.  Grab the bottle of Jack and hide under your desk until it blows over.

In seriousness, there are a lot of things that you can do to get through the season with little pain. 

1. Plan, Plan, and Plan.  Run reports over the last year in this date range to see what sales you did, by customer type, by permit location, permit type, and location of purchase.  This will help you to plan your communications to your customer.  For example, if you had more purchases in your office than online, now is the time to communicate to your customers what a great web page you have and how easy it is to purchase a parking permit online!

2. Map it out!  Consider laying out all of your parking permit configuration in a spreadsheet, for example.  This will help you identify all of your pricing structures, rules around your permits, and keep you organized.  It will make configuring them in your database easier every year if you maintain the copy.

3. Plan out what the week will look like.  Staff accordingly.  If possible, over-staff.  There could be lines out the door.  It may be useful to have someone handing out materials while you wait.  Rutgers University used to have a tent set up to shield the heat and cold beverages while people waited.  If you have to allow people to purchase in your office, this is fantastic customer service for a Department that is not always so liked by its customers!

4. If you do online parking permit sales, make sure that you have tested out everything with your new rules, permits, and pricing in a test environment.  This includes test transactions through to your payment gateway and file transfers to payroll or the bursar.  If any of your rules or software has changed, testing is key! 

These are just a handful of tips.  Make sure you plan early and involve all of your key players.  Good luck!