“To have access to all customer details in one view has been vastly advantageous. Our agents can easily go online and connect with customers in their preferred way; grab a WhatsApp message or reply by email. So Zendesk Agent Workspace has been key to our success.”
Jessica Whitehead
Head of Customer Care at YourParkingSpace
“We aim to deliver 24-hour support at YourParkingSpace. It wouldn’t be financially viable or efficient to scale like that by recruiting another 50 people. The key is using self-service and automation bots.”
Jessica Whitehead
Head of Customer Care at YourParkingSpace
Customer since
2016
Number of support agents
40
>70%
CSAT
85%
One touch resolution
24hrs
WhatsApp First Reply Time
YourParkingSpace
Connecting drivers with parking spaces across the UK
The often quoted saying “the only constant in life is change” has never felt more relevant than in recent times. COVID-19 had an overnight impact on the way companies do business. Not only did they have to deal with workforces being made to work remotely but customer expectations also changed. Embracing digital technologies more than ever, many also came to rely on an omnichannel approach to customer care.
One company that has successfully adopted such an approach to help weather the COVID-19 storm and drive its business forward is the online parking platform YourParkingSpace. Jessica Whitehead, Head of Customer Care at YourParkingSpace, shared the challenges the business faced with its own customer care, how it adopted and introduced new channels, the impact this had and, following their experience, what advice they’d offer to others.
Headquartered in London’s Canary Wharf, YourParkingSpace was founded in 2013 with the aim of making it as simple as possible to park. Today, its online platform connects drivers with over 350,000 privately owned and commercially operated parking spaces across the UK that can be booked on an hourly, daily or monthly basis.
“We are the fastest growing technology provider for operating car parks in the UK. We have introduced digitalisation into an industry that is quite archaic, and customers have responded very positively to it,” describes Jess. “We own every element of the customer journey from the moment of discovery of our platform all the way to delivery of the service, including any after-sales issues that may need to be resolved.”
Meeting customers where they are
YourParkingSpace is dedicated to offering the best customer experience possible. From the outset, it had an omnichannel strategy in that it wanted customers to get in touch using the channel that best suits them. Most recently, YourParkingSpace added WhatsApp as another channel for customers to communicate with its agents.
“In the past 18 months that I have been with YourParkingSpace there has been an increase in the use of WhatsApp. The benefit here is that it allows us to have real-time interaction with our customers, which is something that you cannot achieve with email, so it made sense for us to introduce WhatsApp,” says Jess.
Allowing its customer care agents to seamlessly move from channel to channel has been made even easier with the use of Zendesk Agent Workspace. “To have access to all customer details in one view has been vastly advantageous. Our agents can easily go online and connect with customers in their preferred way; grab a WhatsApp message or reply by email. Additionally, social media queries via Twitter or Facebook are also viewed in one place. So Zendesk Agent Workspace has been key to our success,” adds Jess.
YourParkingSpace is also a big advocate of self-service and enabling customers to operate independently by relying on the company’s online resources. This also means that customers can get answers to queries outside of the working day. “We aim to deliver 24-hour support at YourParkingSpace. It wouldn’t be financially viable or efficient to scale like that by recruiting another 50 people. The key is using self-service and automation bots,” she says.
Learning from data
Data-driven decisions are a major differentiator for businesses these days. YourParkingSpace uses metrics and KPIs to help improve customer care. One of the main metrics is the number of tickets coming in. Analysing the type of requests and queries being raised indicates if there is a challenge in a particular area and, as such, enables the business to address it more quickly. Ultimately, this enables YourParkingSpace to remain proactive rather than reactive to the needs of customers.
CSAT is also a very important metric as it highlights not only where customers are satisfied with the service but also any pain points they might be experiencing, which can then be improved upon. It can also be shared with other areas of the business to help make improvements internally. Thanks to Zendesk, YourParkingSpace has seen a consistent CSAT of 70%-75% since December 2021.
Another key metric is outbound calls as this highlights any queries that could not be resolved with one-touch. “We analyse this data and look at why we had to call out more for this specific request. Where are the pain points? Where can we improve? This and all the other data we collect and analyse can help inform new decisions within the business from customer care to operations,” comments Jess.
One touch resolution now sits at 85%, a rate that has been maintained since December 2021. Additionally, although overall bookings increased by 46.51% between December 2021 and May 2022, Zendesk tools have enabled agents to become more efficient.
The time to act is now
Having successfully adopted an omnichannel approach, YourParkingSpace is well placed to offer advice to other businesses thinking of implementing a CX tech stack for the first time or adding an additional channel. While Jess acknowledges that all businesses are different, there is a common denominator in that if you provide a service there are always going to be queries, complaints and feedback from customers. Investing in a CRM tool will enable you to communicate as efficiently as possible with customers.
Jess also heartily recommends investing in an automation bot or self-service. “If you don't find a way to deflect or solve requests through automation, you are going to need human-power to solve them and that is often not scalable. The only queries that should land with a human agent are those that require specialist knowledge and experience,” She stresses. “Ultimately, automation provides efficiency and 24-hour support which is so key in this day and age.”
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