Sales Director of Creative Car Park’s dedicated SME team, Mark Wallace, shares expert insights on how fully-managed parking solutions can maximise space, revenue and customer satisfaction.
Parking is often overlooked by small and medium-sized businesses – until it becomes a problem. From unauthorised vehicles taking up valuable spaces, to negative customer experiences impacting reputation, poor parking management can quickly affect both operations and revenue.
In this expert Q&A, we sit down with Sales Director Mark Wallace, who heads up our SME team, to explore the key challenges businesses face and how effective parking strategies can transform car parks into valuable business assets.
If you’re looking to take back control of your car park, reduce frustration, and unlock its full potential, this honest interview tells you everything you need to know – and reveals what to look for when choosing a parking management partner.
This is our second expert Q&A with a senior member of the Creative commercial team, following our recent chat with Daniel Cooper who heads up our Large Acquisitions team, providing consultative solutions for businesses with larger parking portfolios.
Mark, what do you think are the main car parking challenges SMEs face today?
For me, the main challenge for SMEs is they don’t always have the time or the resources to manage their car park. And often it isn’t seen as something that needs to be managed. It’s just a car park, part and parcel of what they do. It’s not seen as an asset. But I’ve always said, parking is not a big part of their business until it becomes an issue – then it’s suddenly priority one, because parking is so emotive. The minute there’s an issue with parking, it becomes the most important thing. So when customers or staff can’t park because random vehicles are being left on-site all day, it leads to massive frustration. This affects SMEs in particular as they tend to have a smaller number of spaces. And every space is valuable, whether you have a dozen, or 50 or 60.
As you say, parking can be very emotive, and bad experiences can affect a business’s reputation.
It really can. The minute parking becomes an issue it can spread quickly online, and via social media, affecting your online reputation. People expect to be able to park when they visit, and if they can’t they’ll let others know. We’ve all seen posts about ‘parking nightmares’ online. You know how it is – if you have a good experience, you might tell one person, but if you have a bad experience, you tell ten.
How can parking management support the customer experience without negatively impacting footfall and reputation, due to the introduction of enforcement measures? How do you find the balance?
This is an important question, and it’s something I constantly work with my team on. We are not trying to sell the benefits of parking enforcement. We’re trying to remind businesses about the benefits of parking availability. If you’ve got a business where you require spaces for your staff and customers, and if they can’t park, that’s hitting you directly in the pocket. So it’s the availability that’s key. We don’t talk about how many people we can issue a parking charge to. We talk about what difference it would make to your business if your customers had access to ample, convenient parking. We can also talk about monetising your site if, say, you have a large car park and only half of it is being used…
So the conversations with SMEs are more positive, based around the benefits of parking management?
That’s right. There’s a misconception that car park management companies just want to issue as many parking charge notices as they can. Obviously, we have some competitors in the private parking industry that work a little differently to us, but at Creative we only ever want to enforce parking terms when they have genuinely been breached. It has to be fair. At the same time, enforcement is a powerful deterrent. You can put up your own signs, saying something like “Customer parking only”, but that’s not really a practical solution. What you’ll end up with is increased opposition, because you’ll have staff on-site pointing out the signs. And if you’re doing that there’s always a risk of physical confrontation. Instead, allow us, as a professional parking operator, to take care of all that, and eliminate that risk.
“We can’t create a need for car park management. There has to be a clear need… When the need is there we approach it in a consultative way”
What should small business owners realistically expect from a parking management company? What does the process look like?
In terms of expectations, myself and my team at Creative will always set expectations honestly and with full transparency. This is because it’s irrelevant what the expectations are if they’re not aligned with what we’re going to deliver. This is the most important thing for me, because otherwise we just set ourselves up to fail. We can’t create a need for car park management. There has to be a clear need. If we try to create the need, that’s when the negative connotations around car park management arise. When the need is there – due to a rise in unauthorised parking for example – we approach it in a consultative way. We really understand the need, determining who should be parking there, not just who shouldn’t. And then we propose a tailored, fully-funded solution to address that need. For the business, the solution must be hassle-free, requiring absolutely minimal day-to-day input or interaction. Simplicity is key. We really do look after everything.
What role can car park management play for businesses where turnover is crucial – those in the leisure, fast food and hospitality sectors?
If you take the fast food sector, for example, you have a direct correlation between turnover of spaces and money in the tills. Because people are in and out. We often run a maximum stay solution for those businesses, where customers can park for maybe 30 or 45 minutes while they grab their food. We can offer longer stays, but personally I don’t think it’s commercially viable for businesses to do that. There’s a direct link between dwell time and capacity. Having longer dwell times in certain businesses is going to affect the turnover of footfall. We can, of course, offer longer maximum stay solutions for businesses that would prefer that. Again, this is about understanding the client and their needs. We approach this on a site by site basis. What we don’t want to do is put terms on a car park that only looks favourable to us, as in almost setting drivers up to fail. That is not our business. We will always aim to be more lenient.
You don’t want to deter people from visiting, do you?
No, that’s the last thing we want to do. But at the same time, we don’t want to attract the non-customers by offering three hours stays. As I’ve said, it’s less about enforcement, it’s more about us making the car park accessible and turning it into a valuable asset for the client.
“One of the biggest sources of new business for my team are referrals and recommendations from existing clients who are happy with us as their partner”
What are the main considerations for SMEs when choosing a car park management company?
Transparency. Credibility. Honesty. That’s what we offer at Creative and I think this is what SMEs need. They want to see us as a partner, not as just another service provider. Somebody who they can work with. And we lead the industry when it comes to fair and ethical car park management, always taking a proactive and measured approach. We build in an allowance of leniency and tolerance – and our industry-leading POPLA upheld rates demonstrate that. What this basically means is that, if we issue a parking charge, the independent industry ombudsman POPLA backs us and says, more than any other major parking company, that we’ve issued it fairly. And trust breeds trust. One of the biggest sources of new business for my team are referrals and recommendations from existing clients who are happy with us as their partner. That’s a huge credit to what we do.
As Sales Director of the SME team, what is the one thing that gives you the most satisfaction in your role?
For me it’s when you’re presented with a client who has a problem or a need, and you can provide a solution – to help them take back control of their car park, for example, or to generate more revenue. We’re problem solvers and we deliver solutions with the aim of creating long-term partnerships. In terms of satisfaction in my role, it’s speaking to those clients who truly appreciate what we do for them.
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions Mark.
If you’d like to find out more about our innovative, ethical and consultative parking solutions – for business of all sizes, in every sector – complete the form below and one of our team will be in touch.
