When we launched ParkWhiz, we wanted to put the power of choosing price and location back in the hands of the consumer. Happy to say, we’ve brought cost savings, convenience and on-the-go booking to the old-school, manual paper ticket world of parking.
It’s been our job to help millions of customers since–listening to their stories, hearing their concerns– to enhance our product and their experience parking. What we didn’t anticipate was just how many drivers were using ParkWhiz for needs related to their office or business.
“Well over 40% of our most loyal repeat customers use our existing consumer app for business-related parking,” said Aashish Dalal, ParkWhiz founder and CEO. “We saw the opportunity to develop a product to reduce employee parking costs, simplify account management and receipts, and re-invent the process for visitor parking for businesses,” he said.
Hatching a strong strategy
The more we delved into the habits of businesses when it came to T&E expenses, the more we discovered another old-fashioned system that needed to go mobile.
In fact, 80% of the office managers surveyed* say travel and expense entry is still done manually, after-the-fact. ParkWhiz set out to solve the sheer waste of time, volume of paper receipts, diminished productivity and poor real-time tracking.
“We’d already built a full-function consumer solution, with the bonus of saving up to 50% on drive-up rates,” said Dalal. “Our next challenge was to tailor that experience to employee and client needs in business.”
Product trials, stellar feedback
ParkWhiz for Business was created as a seamless system for both employee travel and client visits. By leveraging our mobile platform, we are able to bring together the smooth user-friendly capabilities of a parking app with a back-end tracking system that makes processing expenses a breeze for businesses.
The ultimate result is a solution that not only enables employees to book parking–at the best prices–but also allows businesses to create mobile parking passes for their clients. For small to medium-sized companies, this means time, productivity and cost savings.
“In the past, employees had to file expense reports for parking and accounting had to chase down missing receipts and client information,” said Switchfast CEO, Jim Anderson, following product trials this year. With ParkWhiz for Business, these hassles are gone,” says Anderson. “ParkWhiz will drive significant savings for our business and our employees prefer to use it, so it’s a win-win for everyone.”
Smart phones, smart business
The key for the ParkWhiz parking passes, is, of course, smart phones. Employees and clients are now accustomed to booking services from anywhere–making our app (for ios and Android) an unmatched tool for convenience.
Individual employees place a booking at any time while traveling, for guaranteed parking at the best price on arrival. The purchase is then charged to the corporate account which allows businesses to track in real-time without paper receipts or the cost of alternate expense management systems.
For clients, ParkWhiz for Business offers concierge-style booking. With this new service, offices are able to book their visitors guaranteed parking in advance, and pay for part or all of it. The client gets an email with the virtual pass, clear directions and instructions. With a nod towards customer appreciation, it eliminates the stress and ill-will caused by making a customer search for parking.
The future of parking
“We’re poised to reinvent the parking experience,” expounds Dalal. “For too long, parking for employees and clients has been at best a flawed experience. It can be stressful and waste time. We don’t have to accept that. By handling parking in advance with our mobile passes, they’ll have the benefit of a guaranteed space, at a lower rate, without the worry of finding parking or paper tracking.”
ParkWhiz for Business launches this week in Chicago and is targeted to roll out nationally in 2017, bringing the ease of parking for meetings to urban centers across the country.
About ParkWhiz:
Headquartered in Chicago, ParkWhiz is the nation’s largest on-demand parking app. The company’s website and mobile platforms provide a fast and efficient way for drivers to find and book guaranteed parking spaces before reaching their destination at over 5000 parking locations across the country, from New York City to Chicago to San Francisco. ParkWhiz is an official partner and parking provider for Ford, Concur, and TicketMaster among many others. ParkWhiz has helped well over 2 million drivers seamlessly get where they need to be. For more information, visit ParkWhiz.com.
*Source: Google Analytics, average monthly unique users, Q1 2015/Forrester Consulting on behalf of Concur, February 2014
