One of the most important things that a parking app must have is top-notch navigation. Because really, what’s the one requirement for people to park in your spot? They need to find it.
Software use is nowadays nothing without physical context, and parking has never been anything but purely location-based. Therefore, it’s natural that one of the most important things that you can do with parking software is navigation. Research shows that location-based services bring immense value to users, and are something that providers should absolutely take advantage of.
People often resort to looking for parking just within a few blocks, so if your parking area is further, people need to know that it exist.
Finding a parking spot is hard. It’s hard even if there are parking facilities right in the center of a city, let alone somewhere else. Parking providers may have facilities in shadow areas that people don’t come across naturally, although they might be a perfect place to park regarding the person’s end destination. The problem is, drivers don’t find those places.
In a previous post we discussed why GPS is crucial for parking apps – people need to know where a parking area is located in relation to their own whereabouts. Taking that same argument one step further, we need to talk about navigation. Because after locating a parking spot, drivers need to find their way there.
In general, you want people to always see exactly how they can get to your business. Map services are a must for any business today, because they are the most effective way of driving traffic (pun intended) to you.
Navigation is a challenge for parking apps, but crucial for survival
It’s really a no-brainer that showing the route from A to B is vital for finding B. But that can still be the tricky part. Routes need to be optimal not only in relation to length but also time, and updated based on traffic conditions and other changes. A short route like parking usually has, i.e. the last leg of the drive is the most crucial one, and that’s the one that navigation has the most challenges with. It’s another thing to lose a few minutes on a 2 hour drive than to lose them on a 3 minute drive from the city center to the closest parking lot. It’s also not enough to get people to location B, they need to find the entry point of the destination too.
This is something worth investing into. At the critical moment when a driver is navigating towards your parking area, it needs to go right. If they don’t find the entrance to your parking facility, they will not stay around looking for it (or if they do, they won’t be happy customers by the time they find it). Result: probably the last time that person will ever park there.
It’s simple: top-notch navigation ensures that the customer arrives successfully to you
Map services are something that people take for granted, up to the point where they may be totally lost (literally) if they are not available. The reason is of course the convenience, and that is something that a parking app is meant to bring altogether, with navigation as a part of it.
Basically, to maximize occupancy, you need to maximize not just visibility, but also usability. Make sure that it’s crystal clear and simple for drivers to find their way to your parking area.
With proper navigation, you can really increase your revenue because it helps customers find their way to your parking locations, no matter where they are. And the easier you make the parking experience for the customer, the more inclined they are to choose your parking facility also in the future.
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Main photo by “Julentto Photography” from Unsplash/CC