Who does parking serve?

Last year I was at a parking industry seminar listening to a talk by Markku Hietala, senior advisor at Real Idea, on collaboration between shopping centers and parking operators. Markku has had a long career in shopping-center management and has seen many stages in the development of the parking business. One point he raised was the perpetual conflict between a shopping center's goals for parking and how they clash with a parking operator's goals, creating friction between the two. It shouldn't be this way — the property's and the parking operator's goals should be aligned, not in conflict.

How does parking work at your property? Is it done to achieve the property's goals, or has the property bent to serve the parking operator's goals?

From our perspective, the fundamental question in a tender is what the contract model actually drives: the property's goals or the operator's goals. That's why the starting point should be an operator that supports the property in achieving its goals.

So what does this mean in practice?

It starts with why and for whom the operator comes to the property. Are they there to cash in on customers, or is the goal to make their customers' customers — i.e., the tenants and their guests — as satisfied as possible?

If the purpose is to punish mistakes or non-payment, that's hardly in line with the property's goals for the customer experience, no matter how much it aims to reduce misuse of the area. Misuse must be prevented, but the process must be fair and customer-oriented.

If the operator gets to decide the price of parking at the site, and the property can't adjust it when needed, that's hardly in line with the property's leasing and cash-flow goals.

If the operator doesn't provide excellent customer service, and messages go unanswered for weeks or months, that hardly creates satisfied tenants, and certainly isn't in line with the property's goals.

If parking isn't your property's core business, the goal of parking shouldn't be to generate the maximum amount of revenue. The primary goal is an excellent customer experience, producing data and analytics to support property management, and optimizing net cash flow on terms that serve the property's overall value.

Properties should demand more from operators

Here are our goals — how do you support us in reaching them?

Customer experience, tenant satisfaction, and cash flow matter to us. How does your operating model help develop these things at the site?

Demand more from your operator. Demand that operations genuinely serve and support your goals. Don't settle for doing things according to the operator's goals.

Don't settle for the bare minimum — demand that the operator invest in what matters to you. If your goals aren't aligned but are in conflict, your selection process still has work to do.

The operator's job is to deliver the best possible customer experience for the property's users while increasing the property's appeal and value for the owner. The added value the operator produces must be measurable using jointly agreed metrics.