The Importance of Cash Handling Procedures

Do you rely on a consistent stream of incoming cash flow – customers paying for parking services with cash, checks, and credit cards – to keep your operation afloat? Do you have multiple front line staff handling your cash transactions every day? Do you ever wonder if you are losing money somewhere along the way? Proper Cash Handling Procedures are a very critical part of managing any size parking service operation.

Proper cash handling policies for processes like cash drawer management, shift start, end of day closing, cash reconciliation, disciplinary actions and daily deposits are very important when it comes to protecting your operation from risk.

Lack of Cash Handling Procedures can lead to risks including theft, reuse of valet and garage tickets, not using tickets, over charging for services, misusing validations and manual gate overrides to  name a few. These risks all result in a significant loss for your operation.

Front line staff that handle cash carry the greatest risk. Proper Cash Handling Procedures greatly reduce these risks.

The purpose of a Cash Handling Policy is to safeguard your cash, reduce risk, establish accountability and define uniform practices. A proper Cash Handling Policy:

·         Establishes documentation on the day-to-day standard operating procedures for cash management

·         Creates a centralized approach for the daily operations which allows for a controlled environment for all employees

·         Ensures each cashier is held accountable for their transactions immediately following their shift

·         Provides immediate feedback to the management team from an auditing perspective for all cash and validations

·         Creates control measures for front line staff at every phase of the daily operation

·         Ensures security for your parking operation

Not only do proper Cash Handling Procedures protect you from the risks talked about above, they also send a clear signal to your front line staff that mistakes and/or theft in your operation are not an option.

If you feel that your Cash Handling Policy needs help, it’s never too late to improve it. Start by understanding your cash handling processes and identify what risks you face.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at sales@parkingsolutionsinc.com 

2014 Cleveland Clinic CARES about parking Symposium

The second annual Cleveland Clinic CARES about parking Symposium is August 12th and 13th! 

Don't miss the opportunity to learn how the award winning Cleveland Clinic Parking Services team operates 44,000 spaces, 11 garages, 116 surface lots, 50,000 internal customers and 24 valet locations. 

The dynamic 2-day event will include six various sessions reviewing the metric driven, "patient first", CARES business model. 

C - Customer Experience
A - Available Parking
R - Responsible Finance
E - Engaged Employees
S - Sustainable Business

We hope to see you at the Symposium. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me at robinsonj@parkingsolutionsinc.com or 614-453-1507. 

To learn more or register, please visit cc.parkingsolutionsinc.com. 

The symposium is in cooperation with: The International Parking Institute and Parking Solutions, Inc. 

Thanks To Our Sponsors: Signature Control Systems, 3M, netPark, Transcore and Toledo Ticket Company.

Benefits of Concierge Services

Concierge services are THE benefit of all benefits for your employees, patients, visitors and guests. In today’s competitive environment, customer and employee loyalty is very hard to achieve. Customers have so many choices to choose from and employee turnover is at an all-time high.

Services such as concierge act as a custom benefit showing both customers and employees that you value them more than ever.

“So many people have commented on how nice the concierge service is to have. Even I find myself using it to get things done that I just can’t seem to find time for.” – Client Partner

Concierge service offer help with:

• Transportation Arrangements (car rental, taxi, shuttle service, etc.)
• Personal Services (appointments, oil changes, car wash, dry cleaning, etc.)
• Dining (reservations, meal plans, etc.)
• Gift Arrangements (flowers, gift baskets, cards, etc.)
• Courier Services (shipping & handling, errands, special delivery, etc.)
• Shopping, Recreation and Entertainment (tickets to movies and shows, shopping information, recommendations, etc.)
• Business Services (catering, rental services, audio/visual, etc.)
• Hospital Tours and Directions 

Everyone’s day-to-day is different, but one thing everyone does have in common is the fact there is not enough time in the day to get everything done. Concierge services help get things done allowing your employees, visitors and guests to focus on what matters most.

Feel free to give us a ring if you’d like to learn more about concierge services and how they could benefit you. 

Our Employees Are The Best

Jhonny Williams, Robert Warr, Freddie Weatherly, James Peterson, Joyce Chaney, Margaret Perry, Anita Allan, Lakeia Cummings, Robin Bryant, Tawanna Carter and Bernard Harmon (all pictured below) received Caregiver Recognition Awards from the Cleveland Clinic for performing outstanding customer service. We're proud to have them on our team! 

Marketing Your Parking

The parking business is very competitive. Facility owners and operators need to be proactive to compete for customers in this ever changing environment. If you are just sitting back waiting for customers to show up… they won’t!

Effective marketing can help ensure your parking operation is profitable. This blog post will briefly discuss creating a strategic marketing plan for your parking facility, using public relations to increase parkers and building relationships with social media.  

• Strategic Marketing Plan
• An effective plan will develop awareness of your brand/facility – who you are, what you do and why customers should use your service over others
• Your plan must identify the audience(s) you intend to target, activities you intend to undertake, a detailed budget of those activities, how you are going to measure success and who will be responsible for each task
• Public Relations
• Good PR campaigns can build relationships with your customers and community, create good perceptions towards your service and help introduce new services
• Communications vehicles include:
• Press releases, Articles, Newsletters, Customer Testimonials, Letters to the Editor and Event Sponsorship's
• Social Media
• Thinking of utilizing social media for your parking operation? The first step is to figure out where your customers are virtually socializing (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr etc.) The next step is to build a relationship with your customers using these channels
• Customers use social media to get news, promotions and to leave feedback – often in the form of complaints
• Social media is not about advertising, it’s about building relationships and growing communities. It’s about having a conversation and developing relationships with your customers
• Monitoring of and quick replies are very important when dealing with social media. These quick responses can quickly turn negative complaints into positive marketing

When PSI starts or transitions a new account, we implement a strategic marketing plan to maximize your facility’s capacity – and maximize your bottom line.  Some of our most successful marketing activities include:

• Online advertising
• News releases
• Referrals
• Newsletters
• Partnerships
• Social media
• Validation programs
• Frequent parker and commuter programs
• Coupon and flyer distribution
• Corporate discounts for volume purchase

PSI understands the marketplace for parking services. We will analyze your market and your pricing strategy, review your operational attributes, and continue to seek opportunities to maximize your revenue.

Contact us today to learn more. 

Ways to Increase Your Parking-Related Revenue [Infographic]

There are many ways to increase your parking-related revenue. Some are obvious, others are less obvious. This post will briefly discuss tips to keep in mind as well as a few ways that have proven successful for PSI and our client partners.

Should you:

•         Charge or not charge for valet parking?
•         Increase parking fees?
•         Provide value added features?
•         Increase marketing and signage?
•         Install technology?
•     Increase parking enforcement?

These are just a few of the questions you might ask yourself when thinking of ways to increase your parking-related revenue. Unfortunately, there isn’t a one size fits all plan that works for every facility. It’s very important to know your facility, know your customers, know your options and know the demand.

Here are a few ways we've been able to help our client partners increase their parking revenue [Infographic]

TIPS:

To Charge or Not to Charge for Valet Parking

• The positive impact of charging for valet parking is the revenue it generates to help offset the cost of the valet service. The negative impact is the decrease in usage and temporary customer complaints.

Increasing Parking Fees

• Remember, increasing rates will increase revenue as long as the increased rates don’t have a significant impact on demand.
• If your rates are fixed per hour and the collection method is flexible (e.g., pay and display, pay on foot, etc.), you could increase your rates for either short term or long term parkers depending on the demand. Increasing the rate for short-term parkers (e.g., $3.00 for the first hour, $1.00 for every hour after that) or increasing the rate for long-term parkers (e.g., $1.00 for the first hour, $3.00 for every hour after that) can help meet the demand at your facility.

Providing Value Added Features

•  Value added features can increase the attractiveness of your facility, increase cars parked and can also improve customer service scores. Offering value added features such as directional assistance, wheelchair and luggage assistance, jump starts, tire inflation and lock-out assistance doesn’t add much cost and increases customer service resulting in more cars parked.

Increasing/Improving Marketing and Signage.

• Poorly marketed and signed parking facilities result in customers either unsure if parking is available, unsure if they’re allowed to park without being ticketed, unsure if the facility takes credit card or customers leaving all together.

 Installing Technology.

• PSI’s cloud-hosted technology offerings include: Point-of-Sale System (POS), Valet Metric System (VMS), Text-for-Retrieval, Pay-by-Phone, Reservations, Handheld Devices and Real-Time Reporting. Installing technology pays for itself by increasing car counts, increasing revenue and decreasing labor hours.
• Pay-by-Phone sends the customer a text alert when their parking fee is running low allowing them to add time through the application.

Increasing Parking Enforcement.

• Parking enforcement can not only increase revenue but also increases customer service by opening up space for your customers to park. If you don’t enforce parking regulations, parkers quickly recognize whether they need to comply with regulations or not and start taking advantage of the system leaving your customers with no place to park.
• Routine parking enforcement has the following benefits:
• It encourages customers to comply with time limits and restrictions which increases turnover of spaces giving your customers a place to park.
• Encourages customers to pay for the time parked and adds revenue through ticketing those non-compliant customers. 

PSI services include: Valet Parking, Garage & Lot Management, Shuttle Services, Ambassadors, Concierge, Traffic Control and Special Events.

Parking Solutions partners with Charleston Area Medical Center

Parking Solutions (PSI) is proud to announce partnership with Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC). PSI has been awarded a multiyear contract to manage CAMC’s parking, valet and ambassador services starting April, 2014.

The operation will consist of 6 parking facilities, 3 valet locations and 2 greeter/ambassadors adding 40 employees to our team.

“PSI is very proud of this new partnership and look forward to getting started,” said PSI President Aaron Shocket, “Our front line team will offer outstanding service to CAMC’s patients, visitors and guests.”