Parking is the main event at Earls Court & Olympia
When Earls Court & Olympia Group (EC&O) first began their search for a new car park pre-booking system they knew exactly what they didn’t want it to do. Limited by software with no online pre-booking or management reporting capability, EC&O’s parking operators were unable to process last-minute bookings, monitor sales or manage parking capacity effectively for their 2.5 million organisers, exhibitors and visitors. ts.com offered them an alternative – the award-winning online pre-booking system ticketingsolutions.
State-of-the-art ticketless parking
ticketingsolutions enables visitors to Earls Court and Olympia to pre-book their car parking for each of the venues’ two large short and long stay car parks quickly and easily online from the Group’s website www.eco.co.uk, or by phone. As the ticketingsolutions system is intelligently integrated with access control equipment from one of the leading providers Scheidt & Bachmann, EC&O’s customers now benefit from state-of-the-art ticketless parking. Customers simply insert the same credit card they used for their online booking into the barrier to both access and exit the car park, secure in the knowledge that their space is guaranteed and there will be no queues to cause delay.
Benefits from reporting
Along with the high level of customer service that the ticketingsolutions online booking system provides the benefits are clearly visible in the day-to-day management of the car parks, as Paul Field, Business Services Manager at EC&O, explains, “the reporting tools within ticketingsolutions not only allow us to monitor bookings in real-time, identify sales trends and work more closely with the events organisers, they also give us the ability to increase or decrease capacity for the car parks according to the event in question. This is particularly useful to us and something we simply couldn’t do before.”
A positive impact on operations
ticketingsolutions has also had a positive impact on life in the back office. “As more and more customers recognise the benefits of booking their parking at a discounted rate online, fewer transactions need to be processed through our call centre which means our staff are freed up to work in other important areas of the business. Operationally it also has advantages for our employees working at the front end who have commented on how easy the ticketingsolutions operator management interface is to use when processing transient parking sales,” says Paul.
Last minute bookings accepted
Feedback from customers has been particularly positive; Paul continues, “using ticketingsolutions means that we can offer customers the opportunity to pre-book their parking at any time of the day or night and at special rates. Online bookers receive an email confirmation which contains useful customer information about the credit card recognition system and directions to the car park.We can also promote options for pre-booking their hotel accommodation. What’s more, thanks to ticketingsolutions, we can now accept last-minute bookings from customers – something which has been very well received.”
With a streamlined car parking operation in place it is no surprise that the growth in parking sales for EC&O has been significant. “ticketingsolutions helps us manage parking capacity effectively and, at the same time, provide all our visitors with a high level of service,” says Paul. “With rising numbers of customers and a system we can rely on we’ve not looked back”.
Solution : ts Advance | ts Collector
Customer
The Earls Court & Olympia Group (EC&O) play host to multiple exhibitions and conferences at their venues in central London and have to cater for all their requirements, including car parking.
Challenge
To provide EC & O with a new car park pre-booking system to give them the ability to sell in advance through their website and have all the reporting capabilities they require to manage car parking capacity for their 2.5 million visitors, organisers and exhibitors.
Solution
ts.com has enabled EC & O to have an online booking system with real time integration into their access control equipment. This gives customers the flexibility to pre-book their parking online right up to the last minute, giving a high level of customer service and freeing up staff who would otherwise be taking phone bookings. The reporting tools within the ts.com system have also benefited their day-to-day management of the car parks.