Investing in parking reservation software is one of the smartest decisions you can make for your business. Not only will it boost the efficiency of your car park and improve customer satisfaction, but it can also increase your profits significantly. Here we’ll explain why parking reservation software should be a pillar of your revenue stream.
What is parking reservation software?
Parking reservation software or smart parking systems are central reservation systems that enable businesses to sell parking to customers online through a website or app 24/7. For customers, it improves their overall experience, saving them time and offering greater convenience. No longer will they turn up and not be able to find a parking space or struggle to find the coins to pay for parking. Instead, they can book a parking space online and either pre-pay for their reservation or pay contactless at a parking meter or via their smartphone afterwards. As a result, the parking experience is far less stressful, and the positive experience goes a long way in ensuring customers return in the future.
And there are huge benefits of smart parking systems for businesses, too, especially regarding parking reservation revenue. By gaining greater knowledge and control of how a car park is used, companies can create solid strategies to make as much money as possible.
For airports, in particular, parking is often the first touchpoint with customers. An airport parking system, therefore, provides excellent opportunities to collect and harness customers’ data so they can build valuable profiles for more targeted marketing and selling opportunities.
Customer segmentation
As we’ve just mentioned, parking reservation software is beneficial when collecting customer data. Through online parking reservations, airports and other businesses with car parks can see who is parking with them and even use it as an opportunity to ask for their marketing permissions. With this data in-house (rather than outsourcing parking management to a 3rd party), businesses can achieve valuable customer segmentation.
Customer segmentation is the act of grouping customers based on common characteristics so companies can market to them more effectively. There are various ways of grouping customers, including by age, gender and location. However, you also might consider grouping customers by:
- When they park (for example, do they only park when rates are cheap?)
- How much they’re willing to pay (do they pay more for closer parking)
- How frequently do they park with you?
- New parkers / returning parkers
Parking reservation software offers a deeper insight into how customers behave and use your services, enabling you to tailor your offers accordingly. With clever customer segmentation, you can personalise offers, upsell and cross-sell other products and reward frequent customers, increasing revenue while strengthening your business-customer relationship.
Demand forecasting
Another way you can boost parking reservation revenue is through demand forecasting. One of the great things about parking reservation software, like Rezcomm, is that it comes with reporting and analytics features.
These features offer a clear picture of customer behaviours and car park usage, thus helping you predict and strategise future car park use. From this data, you can examine parking usage by time of day, day of the week, time of the month and around special events, and use it to plan accordingly, set the correct pricing strategy and ensure you have the right number of staff available.
Accurately predicting fluctuations in demand is key to yield management, which we’ll take a closer look at now.
Yield management
Yield management is all about selling to the right customer, at the right time, for the right price. Within the parking industry, this typically means selling a parking reservation, to the right customers, at the best possible time for the highest amount to maximise the revenue earned.
Adopting a yield management strategy enables car park owners to maximise the money they make from their existing car parks. Using past performance data and demand forecasting, they can anticipate who to market their parking reservations to, at what time and for what price.
Accurate demand forecasting and access to real-time data (as provided by advanced smart parking systems like Rezcomm) enable airports and other car park businesses to adopt a dynamic pricing strategy. This means the price of parking reservations is altered depending on the level of demand to generate the most revenue possible. For example, when demand forecasting predicts a car park will be quieter, the business can set a lower price for parking reservations to encourage customers to book. On the other hand, when demand is higher, a company can offer parking at a premium price, knowing that if customers need to park, they will be willing to do so at a higher cost.
Using parking reservation software, your business can respond to changes in demand instantly and update its prices without delay to drive as much revenue as possible from its existing assets.
All the tools you need/ all-in-one solution
Parking reservation software like the Rezcomm Marketplace offers an all-in-one solution to innovate your business with user-friendly tools for product creation, tariffing, promotions and more. Take control of your parking operations with software to view live occupancy, manage capacity and take instant action. Offer customers parking reservations through your website and dynamically price your products to maximise returns.
What’s more, you can pick and choose from our modules, plugging them in as and when you need them. The Rezcomm Marketplace is flexible, fast to launch and available pay-as-you-go to reduce operating costs. Are you interested in finding out more? Download our Reservations brochure to discover all the tools you need.
Revenue channels
While we’ve discussed how parking reservation software can achieve better customer segmentation, demand forecasting and yield management – all of which have the potential to generate more revenue for your business, it’s also worth examining how it can develop other revenue channels.
For airports in particular, an airport parking system can introduce customers to your other product offerings and increase their awareness of flights, pre-book food and drink and lounge reservations, which you may also sell through your website or app. While new customers have likely already booked flights elsewhere when they buy airport parking from you, by collecting their marketing permission through your parking reservation software, you can share your flight deals with them. So next time customers plan a holiday, they know they can book flights with you. It’s all about playing the long game!
Are you still waiting to sell flights or lounge reservations through your airport website? Download the Rezcomm Marketplace brochure to learn about selling ancillary products and services to customers in a single basket on your ecommerce website.
Your parking reservation software can also link customers into a loyalty loop and get them signed up for your rewards programme. This will make customers feel valued and encourage them to keep spending money with your business, leading to higher revenues. Again, this is something we can help you set up, ensuring you unlock the most parking reservation revenue possible.
Boost your parking reservation revenue with Rezcomm
It’s time to make parking reservation software a pillar of your revenue stream. Combined with Rezcomm’s Customer Relationship Management, Business Intelligence, Ecommerce and Marketing modules, you can benefit from a full circle solution for monitoring, managing and monetising your parking assets. To find out more, please download our brochure and book a meeting with our parking industry experts to build a tailored strategy to maximise parking revenue.
As Chief Digital Officer at Rezcomm, Victoria specialises in Digital marketing, CRM, digital design, UI, UX, email marketing, airports, innovation, technology, travel, parking, and ecommerce.
