Listening to Clients is the Best "Unlock" Strategy

I love meeting with clients!?

I surprise myself when I say this out loud. Growing up, I considered myself the classic introvert - preferring to read or play video games than being around groups of people for periods of time. As I looked forward to college, the one career I was adamant that I did not want was sales. Funny how true the adage is “If you want to hear God laugh, tell God your plans.”

It has taken nearly two decades to make peace with the fact that my skills, abilities, and aptitude sits best with client facing and engagement activities. I found over my career that I sincerely enjoy listening to clients, understanding their challenges, helping solve problems, and most importantly seeing them be successful in their initiatives.?

This reflection rang true this week as I had the opportunity to sit down with several Passport clients in the Chicago metro area while traveling with Jacob Breig and Scott Fox . It is easy to think of a region like Chicago as one single continuous city but the reality is that each of these Towns, Villages, and cities have unique needs, challenges and opportunities. Their communities are unique and each approach policies, parking, and mobility slightly different. They are all unified, however, in their commitment to providing the best experience and services for their constituents.?

Passport is fortunate to serve over one third of the cities across the State of Illinois. We have an amazing set of clients across the state with an increasing density in the Chicago metro area. Passport is honored to have built and sustained this client base over multiple years and it is a pleasure to serve each one of these municipalities. It was especially great to spend time with a couple of these clients - Village of Oak Park and the City of Evanston - and hear how their parking programs continue to advance.?

Evanston and Village of Oak Park have both seen record adoption of their mobile parking applications with each exceeding usage of greater than 60% (or more) of all parking transactions.?

The Village of Oak Park is seeing record mobile transactions eclipsing highs achieved prior to 2020. In the most recent month they have seen 16,000 unique parkers leverage the Park OakPark. It is amazing to hear some of the unique features clients like the Village of Oak Park include in their deployment of the parking app such as the ability to find an EV charging station or pay a citation.

Evanston is seeing similar success across their Parking operation with a 13% YoY increase. In addition, Evanston has been able to effectively expand their enforcement operations to provide their staff of enforcement officers the most intuitive and efficient citation issuance hand-held systems in the market. Passport’s commitment to ease of use and innovation helps support Evanston’s ability to effectively enforce and manage appropriate parking regulations across the city. At the same time, Evanston is very deliberate about meeting their constituents “where they are” and partnered with Passport to launch flexible and engaging payment plan options to best manage outstanding citation amounts.

It was energizing to hear directly from clients - Village of Oak Park and City of Evanston IL - and the amazing work they are doing to help people effectively move and engage across the city. Both are leaders in how they adopt and use technologies to make it easier for constituents to move and engage across their respective cities.?

I have been incredibly fortunate to spend time with #leaders and #doers across the world and their passion to solve real problems is infectious. I am sure this is true for people across many different industries but I do believe this especially true for those that work in Government and Healthcare. People who serve in government and healthcare truly embody a “mission-driven” mentality and being a part of their journey is a true blessing. Are you #mission-driven in your work? Let's connect and share stories of how we are making a difference!

#parking #govtech #clientfocused