If there’s a single phrase on every parking conference agenda in 2019, it’s customer-centric. The idea: a driver shouldn’t have to think about parking at all. They should find a space, get in, and pay without friction. It’s a good goal — but the gap between the keynote vision and what’s deployable in your lot this year is worth being honest about.
Here’s what “customer-centric” actually means for an operator in 2019, and where to put your attention.
What’s real today
Three things are genuinely deliverable right now and move the needle on experience:
- Mobile payment and account-based parking. Letting a driver pay by phone, or tying their parking to an account they manage online, removes the most common friction point — fumbling for cash or a card at the machine. For your monthly and frequent parkers especially, this is a real upgrade.
- Real-time availability. Showing how many spaces are open — at the entrance, on a sign, or in an app — cuts the anxiety of “will I find a spot?” and reduces circling. You don’t need a per-space sensor grid to start; a reliable facility-level count goes a long way.
- Clean, fast entry and exit. The least glamorous part of the experience is often the most important. A gate that opens quickly for a recognized vehicle, a payment that processes on the first tap — that’s what customers actually remember.
What’s still on the horizon
The flashier 2019 talking points are coming, but temper expectations:
- Connected cars and in-dash payment. Automakers are demoing in-vehicle parking payment, and it’s a real direction. But the installed base of cars that can do it is tiny today. Plan for it as a future integration, not a 2019 line item.
- Predictive, app-guided routing to a specific open space is impressive in a demo and valuable in large, complex garages — but overkill for a facility a driver can read at a glance.
The pattern is familiar: the experience layer (apps, data, connected vehicles) only works if the equipment underneath it is fast, reliable, and integrated. A beautiful app sitting on top of a slow, flaky entry lane just gives the customer a nicer view of the wait.
A note on what “customer-centric” doesn’t mean
It’s tempting to read “frictionless” as “remove the gate.” For most commercial operators, that’s the wrong lesson. The gate is what protects your revenue. The customer-centric move isn’t to remove it — it’s to make it open so fast and so reliably for your known customers that the friction effectively disappears. (We dug into this in License Plate Recognition for Gated Access.)
And on pricing: customer-centric does not mean prices that move on their own. Operators set their rates — time-of-day, early-bird, event — deliberately. Predictability is part of a good experience, too.
The takeaway for 2019
Start where the payoff is real: mobile/account payment, honest real-time availability, and fast reliable entry and exit. Treat connected cars and predictive guidance as a roadmap, not a purchase order. The operators who win on “experience” in 2019 aren’t the ones with the most features — they’re the ones whose basics never make a customer wait.
For more on the payment side of the experience, see Apple Pay at the Parking Kiosk.
Want a parking experience your customers don’t have to think about? Talk to Parking BOXX about pay stations, account-based parking, and entry that just works.