Outsourcing Citation Collections Helps University of Oklahoma Parking & Transportation Services Meet their Goals
Background
The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a 131-year-old institution with three campuses and 28,000 students currently enrolled. It is a large public research university renowned for its academic excellence and vibrant campus culture.
The institution prides itself on its commitment to providing a full spectrum of services for its community of students, faculty, staff, and visitors, as exemplified by its OU Parking and Transportation Services team. With a staff of 40 operating as a self-supporting unit, OU Parking Services ensures accessible and convenient parking across campuses, while enforcing violations. They issue and manage 19,000 permits annually for 16,000 permitted spaces, and utilize 12 pay stations for visitor, vendor, and special event parking. All the fees they collect for parking on campus serve as a mainstream of revenue to fund their initiatives for parking expansion and continuous improvement to their operation.
“It was very easy working with T2, and they’re very responsive to our needs. We’re not doing any extra work, but we’re bringing in more revenue.”
Gary Epperson
University of Oklahoma Parking and Transportation Services
Challenges
The number of OU student residents and commuters has grown exponentially since 2020, which has necessitated the need for OU Parking Services to expand its parking availability on campus. The team is planning for the addition of spots at two of their lots and a renovation of their oldest garage, to be implemented by August 2024.
The expense of the expansion would be costly, yet OU Parking Services remained determined to avoid any increase in customer fees to raise the revenue needed. With about 60,000 citations issued each year and a large number left unpaid, it became clear that collecting fines would help fund the projects. “It’s revenue generation that we weren’t effectively capturing,” said Gary Epperson, manager of OU Parking and Transportation Services. “We needed to figure out a way to get some of this back, carefully.”
The group did not have the bandwidth for staff to take on any tasks for collections, and required a service that would take a like-minded approach toward the care and treatment of OU patrons. “It [became] a balance between wanting to capture some of the money we’re losing while also not creating a bad reputation for going after people too aggressively,” Epperson said.
Epperson and OU Parking and Transportation Services Director Kris Glenn heard about the T2 Citation Services solution through their T2 account manager. Already familiar and pleased with T2 solutions and services, they decided to try our no-obligation citation collections service. “The team was excited to tackle the problem head-on with the help of T2,” Glenn said. “Every dollar we can collect counts.”
“We didn’t have the resources, the way of tracking people, or the expertise to handle the entire collection process that T2 does.”
—Kristapher Glenn, Director, University of Oklahoma Parking and Transportation Services
Solutions
For over 20 years, T2 has been the industry leader in parking collections services, with millions of dollars recovered for customers annually, and hundreds of thousands of citations processed. Our full-service, certified collection and citation processing center is fully staffed with customer service-focused, licensed collections agents who understand the importance of protecting reputations.
Our suite of services includes citation processing, registered owner retrieval, letter services, payment processing, and collections. “We didn’t have the resources, the way of tracking people, or the expertise to handle the entire collection process that T2 does,” said Glenn.
We worked with the OU team to understand their goals and needs, then helped them find the right combination of services that would maximize their revenue. Customers can choose a full suite of services or select services, a la carte. “T2 was great about working with us. They left it up to us how often we wanted to send letters and how soon we wanted to send them. They helped guide us. We added input, they offered some input, and then we came to an agreement,” said Epperson.
“It was very easy working with T2, and they’re very responsive to our needs,” stated Epperson. “We’re not doing any extra work, but we’re bringing in more revenue.”
Results
Many operations do not have the capacity to collect unpaid citations in-house, and struggle to raise revenue that would help them achieve their goals. OU Parking Services trusted T2 to handle their collections efficiently, in just the way they wanted.
In four years, T2 collected over $90,000 for OU Parking Services with 96% profitable months. That’s $20,000 per year that they had not been capturing. Since starting with Citation Services in 2019 until 2023, there have been no price increases in permits for their customers. “It’s the additional revenue stream that allowed that,” stated Glenn.
In addition, they were able to use the revenue to help expand parking and plan for the future. “T2 Citation Services allowed us to put additional dollars into our operation,” said Glenn. “We have several capital projects coming up, and every dollar in revenue that we can capture counts towards that.”
T2 provides comprehensive care for operations to help them thrive, and it was a combination of several solutions that has helped OU Parking Services meet their goals, including T2 Flex, Flexport, and Citation Services. Our account managers stay in close contact with customers and suggest current and emerging technology – T2 or not – that would best suit their operation. “They’re always looking out for their customers,” stated Epperson.
OU Parking and Transportation Services is planning to implement license plate recognition (LPR) in the next three years and continue to adopt emerging parking technologies to optimize operations and provide a positive customer experience. Working with T2, they know they will meet their goals while best serving the students, faculty, and staff of the university.
“T2 is always a part of what we do and a part of our goals,” Epperson said.
We look forward to working with OU Parking and Transportation Services in the future and seeing the team continue to thrive.
Interested in maximizing collection rates and generating revenue from unpaid tickets? Contact us to learn more about how T2 Citation Services can assist your operation.
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