Technology and T I BY JOHNWICKER


N 2002,MYTEAMAND I SET OUTTO identify the next industry that would bene- fit from technology to improve business and customer efficiency. We found that parking and towing had adopted basic


technology, but the industries had yet to fully capi- talize on the opportunities to improve the way busi- ness is done.


We found that municipal towing had not seen innovation


in years and the processes used were drastically outdated. The majority of towing operators did not use computers effectively or invest in anything beyond tow truck equipment. We knew this industry needed a transformation and decided to bring this old world business into the 21st century.


Building a Business to Scale We first began in San Francisco seven years ago.The city


and county’s towing process was plagued with problems typi- cal in the industry such as long tow wait times, vehicle dam- age, property loss, low levels of reporting and accountability, unmanageable paper files, and plenty of unhappy cus- tomers.We developed a solution to address these problems using a combination of people, processes and technology: • People – attract and retain an experienced management


team and create a culture of accountability, teamwork and innovation • Processes – build scalable procedures, train staff, test


for procedure adherence, and implement supporting controls • Technology – invest in a component-based architecture


that integrates leading off-the-shelf solutions and,when neces- sary, proprietary custom-built applications. A capablemanagement teamwith deep domain expertise


is a key factor in building a successful business.Transforming an old world service requires leaders willing to invest in busi- ness infrastructure, retrain aworkforce resistant to change, and view the business from the perspective of the customer. A municipal towing company will never create a brand image as positive as Coca Cola, but with effort one can make the cus- tomer experience far better than current expectations. By partnering with Nextel, Cisco and other technology


service providers, we created a proprietary GPS-based track- ing technology and record keeping platform that replaced the long chain of phone calls and radio dispatches and paper trails. This investment paid for itself not only in increased efficien- cies, but provided tools to provide better service as well. The model we now use is reminiscent of other industries


that have transitioned to more efficient technology processes. For instance, the dispatch function finds the closest tow truck in the area similar to when a customer requests a Taxi cab. When the towis en route fromrequest to towlocation, the sys- tem database is automatically updated. It is FedEx tracking meets Hertz Gold Service formunicipal towing. San Francisco, our flagship city, saw a drastic improve-


mentwhenAutoReturn implemented its dispatch process.The city experienced a 32% improvement in tow response times using the same local tow operators. Customer complaints reduced from10–20 permonth to less than one permonth, and


28 DECEMBER 2009 • PARKING TODAY • www.parkingtoday.com


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