Poppy Guloien, Regional Sales Manager – Permits and Enforcement
For operations with permitted parking, virtual permits are a simple way to create a more frictionless and touchless experience for both your team and your customers. A virtual permit uses a unique identifier – most commonly a license plate number – instead of a physical permit as the credential. When combined with online sales and license plate recognition (LPR) enforcement, you can unlock a number of benefits that will help you operate more efficiently and maximize revenue.
1. Save Time and Streamline Processes
Moving to virtual permits with online sales is a game changer for parking office staff. All the time that was previously spent selling permits at the front desk, managing paper applications, and creating and mailing physical credentials can now be spent on other tasks. Selling virtual permits is also a much more streamlined process. When a customer purchases a permit, the information is sent directly to your back end system, and once you approve the request, you’re done. All of this will help your team work much more efficiently, enabling your operation to run more smoothly.
2. Reduce Costs While Increasing Revenue
The most obvious costs that virtual permits eliminate for a parking operation are producing, printing, and mailing physical credentials. However, virtual permits also reduce labor costs, as fewer staff resources are needed to work the front desk during permit season. And since virtual permits are more convenient for customers as well, many parking operations sell more permits after making the switch. One T2 customer, a large university, saw a 30% increase in sales during their first season with virtual permits.
3. Provide Touchless Service
Selling virtual permits online through your organization’s website provides a much better experience for your customers. They no longer have to spend hours waiting in line during permit season or make their way to your parking office every time they need to update their information. Plus, virtual permit sales will be valued and appreciated more than ever, as the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the trend toward touchless payments and virtual service options.
4. Increase Enforcement Efficiency
By moving to virtual permits, you eliminate the need for your enforcement officers to check dashboards or rear-view mirrors for physical credentials. All they have to do is check the license plate. Going a step further and adding an LPR system adds even more automation to the enforcement process, resulting in a 10- to 20-fold improvement in enforcement productivity.
5. Improve Parking Compliance
Virtual permits help increase compliance in several ways. By nature, using a license plate as the credential eliminates the possibility of your permit holders forgetting or losing a physical credential, such as a hangtag. Additionally, virtual permits are impossible to forge or share with others, which significantly reduces misuse.
Interested in making the move to virtual permits? T2 can help! Our T2 Flex® parking management software and FlexPort self-service parking portal make virtual permits a breeze, while seamlessly integrating with our partner Genetec’s LPR solution. Reach out to your Account Manager for more information, or if you’re not yet a part of the T2 Community, contact us today to get started.
Poppy joined the T2 Systems team in 2020. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria and 20 years of sales, marketing, and customer service experience spanning a variety of industries, including hotels, oil and gas, and helicopters. Formerly a Pay Station Sales Representative for Digital Payment Technologies, Poppy is excited to return to the parking community and to represent the permitting and enforcement solutions at T2.
Header photo created by lifeforstock – www.freepik.com
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