How not to park cars!

 

Safety First!

If a company wishes to be successful and experience continued growth, it must establish a set of core values. Core values are ones that rarely change. Whether we continue to park cars or diversify into other business ventures. Our core values remain relatively unchanged. Those three values are: safety, service and cost. When we consider these values in that order of importance and implement these values every single day, we will build a triangle for success -- not only for our company but for ourselves. We must be mindful of these values at all times, not just on the job but in our personal lives as well. We need to understand that if we fail to implement any side of our triangle our company along with our well being will collapse over the long haul.

In this post, we will discuss safety. The other two values will be discussed in future posts.

Safety is the foundation of our triangle. We have all heard the phrase, “SAFETY FIRST.” We teach this to our kids and it holds water in every area of our life. Safety is also a key factor in maintaining cost effectiveness and providing the best service our customers deserve. If our workplace is unsafe and we fail to communicate unsafe conditions, then we are all subjected to an unsafe environment.  This in turn equates to astronomical costs in injuries, liability and loss of customers.  Safety compliance should never be viewed as an unnecessary expense or a waste of time.  Serious injury or loss of life to employees, customers, or the general public will always outweigh the financial cost of maintaining a safe place to work and live, not to mention the emotional cost of these problems.

Be sure to make our lots and garages safe or communicate problems when they exist. It’s in everyone’s best interest to do so.

We will discuss ‘Service” as a core value in a future post! Stay tuned!

Oldie but goodie!

Douglas Parking at Lewis Street Professional Center appears on Jimmy Kimmel Live back in 2010!

Message from the owners - Leland, David & Steven Douglas

Whenever customers receive bad service, we usually hear about it. People will take the time to call or email us to tell us that they had a bad experience at a parking facility.  Unfortunately, it’s rare when a person calls or emails us to tell us about good service they received. So when they do, we know that they must have received REALLY good service. Often times we’ll be at a meeting or event and people will go out of their way to tell us that they really had a nice experience at a parking lot. The most common “good service” comment we receive is, “your attendant was really nice to me. He smiled and thanked me for parking at your location. You’re people are always very nice.” These types of comments, of course, are exactly what we want to hear. We know that you don’t necessarily want to be at work, and you’d rather be doing something a bit more fun. But we truly appreciate it when, despite however you’re feeling, you treat the customer professionally and with respect. A smile and a courteous, confident greeting will go a long way. Nothing makes us more proud than when a customer we don’t know approaches us with some positive feedback about a nice experience they had parking at one of our locations. Thank you for always keeping a smile on your face, treating the customers well, and providing the best service possible.  Keep up the good work and enjoy the summer.

New Mobile Payment Methods

Smart phones are everywhere and are enabling users to buy and do more every day. Whether it’s through an iPhone or Android, more and more applications are popping up to help users’ park and pay more easily. Paying for services by wireless phone is the new black! Vendors everywhere are opening up payment options via what’s called the “electronic wallet.” Parking lots and garages are no different.

There are many different ways this is being done, such as the Qpass app that is GPS-based so it knows what lot you’ve parked at and gives you the rates, etc. Verrus is another app that allows people to setup an account and call an 800 number to pay for parking. You can bet that more apps will come, since customers like not having to carry cash and they can easily print receipts online. Other applications have been created to allow users to text message valet parking when they are ready for their car, help customers find their parked cars, and to reserve and pay for a space in advance.

Customers can gain all kinds of driving assistance in the cities where they park and gain access to locations for lots, etc. All this new technology is very good for us at DP because it drives people to our facilities, encourages customer loyalty, and improves our data collection and citation accuracy. We hope to see more of this technology being used in the future at many of our parking facilities.