Towing Transformed How ParkingPass.com Redefines the Industry's Landscape
Feb 06, 2024
Darian Weaver
Discover the synergy between cutting-edge digital parking management and the traditional towing industry as we sit down with industry powerhouses Darian Weaver and Matt Boileau. Together, we unveil the transformative capabilities of parkingpass.com for towing operators looking to reduce errors, cut costs, and find new revenue streams. Our discussion ventures into how digital permits are paving the way for a more efficient and error-free future, eliminating the need for physical stickers while providing a robust solution to tow companies during economic downturns.
Joining the conversation, Matthew Boileau from parkingpass.com walks us through the importance of nurturing relationships in parking management and ensuring reliability in operations. We examine the intricacies of tracking expired registrations and banning troublesome vehicles, all while maintaining profitability and legal compliance with educational insights from Recovery Billing Unlimited. Hear how Rent-a-Wrecker services could be the secret sauce to keeping your towing business running smoothly, and learn about the advanced reporting features that are adding immense value to property managers and tow operators alike.
Finally, we extend our heartfelt thanks to the vibrant community, dedicated vendors, and all the participants fostering growth and success in the towing industry. Emphasizing family, safety, and prosperity, we celebrate the collective wisdom that propels us forward. Encouraging our listeners to stay engaged with our content, we promise to keep delivering the knowledge that shapes the future of towing businesses, honoring our commitment to uplift and educate our audience with each episode.
Discover the synergy between cutting-edge digital parking management and the traditional towing industry as we sit down with industry powerhouses Darian Weaver and Matt Boileau. Together, we unveil the transformative capabilities of parkingpass.com for towing operators looking to reduce errors, cut costs, and find new revenue streams. Our discussion ventures into how digital permits are paving the way for a more efficient and error-free future, eliminating the need for physical stickers while providing a robust solution to tow companies during economic downturns.
Joining the conversation, Matthew Boileau from parkingpass.com walks us through the importance of nurturing relationships in parking management and ensuring reliability in operations. We examine the intricacies of tracking expired registrations and banning troublesome vehicles, all while maintaining profitability and legal compliance with educational insights from Recovery Billing Unlimited. Hear how Rent-a-Wrecker services could be the secret sauce to keeping your towing business running smoothly, and learn about the advanced reporting features that are adding immense value to property managers and tow operators alike.
Finally, we extend our heartfelt thanks to the vibrant community, dedicated vendors, and all the participants fostering growth and success in the towing industry. Emphasizing family, safety, and prosperity, we celebrate the collective wisdom that propels us forward. Encouraging our listeners to stay engaged with our content, we promise to keep delivering the knowledge that shapes the future of towing businesses, honoring our commitment to uplift and educate our audience with each episode.
Speaker 1:
Welcome one and all to so. Professionals Podcast. This is your podcast. It is for the pros that have a need to know, that are on the go. It's truly the voice of the towing industry. I'm DJ Harrington, better known as the Toad Doctor, and it's always a pleasure to introduce all these podcasts to you guys. In this episode we have the president and publisher of Toad Professor magazine, my dear friend Darren Weaver. Darren.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, dj, this is a fantastic one today. We've got Matt Barlow on here today with parkingpasscom. He's the president and CEO and, like I said, they've got solutions for this industry. So I'm excited about it and, matt, we're happy to have you on today.
Speaker 3:
Thanks for having me guys.
Speaker 1:
I really appreciate talking to you, dj and Darren again Well it was a great guest the last time and it'll be no different this time.
Speaker 2:
Without a doubt, we'll have some great insight for our listeners today, 100% Well, let's start this thing right out of the gate. Matt, I just want to ask and let our listeners get this information Areas and property types, and can your system with parkingpasscom service in this industry?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so we're a nationwide company. Obviously a digital parking solution that helps, you know, apartments, condos, hoas kind of manage all their on-site resident and guest parking. But we can work with a wide variety of property types, so, whether they're gated, ungated, mid-rise, high-rise, garden-style properties. We also recently started getting involved with public parking lots, so if there's any tow owners out there who manage public lots for clients, we have the ability to digitize all that. That way, these lot owners can generate some extra income.
Speaker 2:
Wow, man, that's fantastic. So, whether these owners are located in their lots and their service areas in the city or they're in the suburbs, you've got programs that fit all the needs. That's correct, matt. That's awesome. Well, dj, next one's for you, sir.
Speaker 1:
Yeah now, the reason why I like Matt being on is because co-orbitals are looking for extra money in their pocket. They need to listen to this pocket. So my question, matt how would a tow company save money using parkingpasscom?
Speaker 3:
So you know, as we know, right in the towing industry there's, you know, these property clients lean on you a lot of times to provide extra things for them, one of those things being, you know, physical parking permits.
Speaker 3:
I can't tell you how many tow operators I've spoken with that spend thousands of dollars every year purchasing parking permits, having to deliver these parking permits when they run out, and in fact, these properties are usually charging for these permits that you're providing them at no cost to them, right?
Speaker 3:
So a huge saving for the tow company would be on those physical parking stickers, since our system doesn't require it whatsoever. The other side is when it comes to any mistakes and givebacks with the towing industry. Right, it's a prevalent issue where you know, darren I mentioned earlier, they had some ice over there in Alabama. You know, when you start getting in the inclement weather where there's snow all over the vehicles, you know your drivers make mistakes. It's hard to go through a lot Wipe off 300 cars looking for a square decal that's maybe one inch by one inch, or, with our program with everything being digital by the license plate, they don't have to go through scraping off all the cars and in essence, it saves you money on labor, saves you money on tow givebacks, and then you also save the money on those physical parking stickers.
Speaker 1:
Makes a lot of sense. It's a lot of sense. I just hope the towers that are listening now are thinking about okay, this might be another added revenue for my business.
Speaker 2:
Well, I like what you're saying right there, dj, because we learned very quickly during COVID. There wasn't any toes that you could create, there wasn't cars out there, there wasn't a lot of revenue, so a lot of our owners had to dig deep and find other ways of revenue. And this is a great one. And when you say you can sit in a vehicle and read the license plate, but I happen to get out and wipe snow off of 300 vehicles, hey, you sold me right there.
Speaker 1:
All right, why don't we do this? Let's take a fast break and when we come back we're going to talk to Matthew more about parking pass dot com. So hang tight folks.
Speaker 4:
Attention tow heroes. Level up with Tomates' new XR series wireless tow lights, now supercharged with long-lasting lithium technology. Boost your truck's visibility with PowerLink 2-wire light bars and strobes. Maximize impact while minimizing installation. They utilize your existing wiring and don't miss our life-savered. Cone-mounted warning lights your first line of defense on the roadside. Illuminate your path at wwwtowmatecom. Slash dealers or dial 800-680-4455. Towmate Dependable, durable, dynamic.
Speaker 5:
Towbookcom is the only way to go To manage all the vehicles you tow off the road. A number one platform in the industry. The cloud-based towing software can handle all your needs. Ride from your phone with support day and night. Visit towbookcom and give it a try.
Speaker 6:
For over 50 years, jurdan has defined towing and recovery industry standards for performance, reliability and service. Jurdan offers an extensive range of light, medium and heavy-duty records carriers and rotators. Each truck offers superior engineering for strength and stability, reliability and versatility to exceed the expectations of a demanding industry.
Speaker 1:
You have been listening to a professional on-the-go podcast Each and every week. Darren and I do our best to bring you informative episodes like this one with parkingpasscom. Make sure you download and listen. We're available on Spotify, iTunes, Enduro, Stitcher, iHeart Media, Amazon or wherever you get your podcast. All right, further ado, Darren, let you get hit the next one.
Speaker 2:
All right, definitely. I know we've got our listeners' attention with this so far. This next one's perfect, Matt. What are some of the unique features that parking pass has upcoming that the towing industry should be aware of and pay attention to?
Speaker 3:
A couple of things. One that I think is really great that's going to help with the industry in general A lot of folks that know about our program and for those of you that don't we have integrations with mobile apps that can do mobile scanning of the license plate Without you having to purchase any sort of equipment to put on the trucks or connect to laptops or anything like. That makes it a lot more cost effective of not having to purchase all that equipment. One of the things that we're working on right now is having integrated solutions with fixed LPR cameras license plate reader cameras that can go at the entrance and exit of the property, where we could do automated tow requests in our program for every vehicle that enters the property that isn't registered. What we can do is we're going to be setting up time limits that the properties are going to customize for their sites that allow us to alert the tow company directly. When a vehicle maybe shows up at their property and doesn't get registered as a guest by a certain amount of time, we'll trigger that tow request over to dispatch. That way, dispatch can double check the accuracy of the camera to make sure they didn't misread the plate and then, consequently, go ahead and dispatch that driver over to get that tow.
Speaker 3:
There's a great way for you all to, you know, 24 hours a day, be getting these automated tow dispatch requests just from our program, from these clients implementing these, you know, license plate reader cameras that are going to be fixated at the entrance and exit of the property. The second feature that we have I think that's unique we've been working with a lot of downtown properties lately allowing our residents the opportunity of releasing their assigned parking space into the rest of the marketplace for that property. Where somebody has a guest coming over, that guest can actually pay that resident to use their spot for X amount of time or whatever the settings are that the property sets up. So it's a cool little feature that maybe doesn't necessarily tie immediately into the tow industry but it's a cool little feature that we're happy with that's going to be coming out soon to kind of help with our downtown areas that have a lot of that assigned parking.
Speaker 2:
And you guys it sounds like you're way ahead of the curve on this, Matt and a lot of features built in to simply make this thing. Put the dollars in your bank while you're sitting there. It sounds like it starts working for you. So, hey, DJ, I'm going to throw the next one to you, sir.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think Matt in parkingpasscom has that canine attitude constant and never-ending improvement Canine.
Speaker 2:
A guy, a guy.
Speaker 1:
A constant, never-ending improvement. All right, my question, matt, is kind of twofold Is there a cost involved for the towing company, and then is there multiple logins for parking pass?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so in regards to the logins, it's unlimited right, so we don't charge the tow companies anything to be able to use our software to go in and check the tags.
Speaker 3:
In fact, we'll actually train the operators, we'll train the drivers on how to provide the enforcement, how to use our tool, what to look for, and give them some tips and tricks, because we just got a lot of industry knowledge doing this for the last eight, nine years. When it comes to the mobile app for the LPR, there is a cost involved. It's $30 per login. But if you've got only one login needed for 10 properties, they could share that login as long as they're not using it all at the same time. But if you take that cost say $30 a month for the mobile LPR I mean an LPR system these days probably costs anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000. I mean, if you do the math just on that it's going to take you at least 12, 13 years just to pay back your physical LPR, as opposed to just using a digital solution which is just an app that they have on their phone.
Speaker 1:
I got you and that's a class. 30 bucks, that's good. All right, daryl, how about? We do one more, and then we'll take a break.
Speaker 2:
Man, that sounds good to me, dj. This is really interesting, man, and the way it's mapped out, matt, that was my biggest question from the point was the cost getting into this? And with the way you have this set up, man, it just makes sense to have this as another form of revenue for the company. It just adds value to the business. Well, the next question I have is how are the errors handled by parkingpasscom? And then, secondly, who assumes the associated cost when there are errors?
Speaker 3:
Yeah and Darren, as you know right, no system's perfect and no person's perfect right. So we are able to account for both ends. So I will say this from my perspective If my system ever makes an error with a vehicle getting towed that shouldn't have, I never, ever, ever expect our owners to pay for those tows. It's 100% coming out of my pocket if anything ever happens with a system. Now we haven't had any issues with any down times or technical errors or anything like that. Our system's rock solid. I mean we track every text message, every email, every page view that these residents do and we've got it all there at our fingertips. If there's ever a situation where maybe a driver makes an error on the report, that's something that usually our tow owners will discuss directly with the property and their client directly, since they manage that account from a towing perspective. But we always maintain that responsibility. If anything ever comes from our side, we make sure our tow owners get paid for their time and their effort.
Speaker 2:
Yes. Well, that's why I like having you on here so much, because I believe you know, with this industry, it's definitely all about relationship. It's a Thai community, it's it's a family knit community, and that's what it comes down to is, when somebody knows they can count on you, the product just follows. And what I've seen with parking pass calm is 100% and you guys have Ironed it out from a to z to make sure that all they can do is go out there and and make money and support their business the right way. So that's, that's phenomenal. I'll tell you what we're gonna do lessers, don't cut away. We've got more knowledge coming back from Matthew Bolo, president, ceo of parking pass calm. Stay tuned.
Speaker 6:
Recovery billing unlimited is an organization dedicated to teaching fellow toers how to become more profitable for the work they do. Recovery billing unlimited can teach you the proper tow business foundation, the proper way of writing acceptable recovery invoices, remediation of the accident seemed to free you from future liability and laws to help you get paid. These are just a few of the things covered when you attend a class from recovery billing unlimited For class or seminar information. Visit recovery billing unlimited calm. Recovery billing unlimited making towers more profitable.
Speaker 6:
At record rentals, we understand time is money. If your truck is out of service due to a mechanical issue or collision, we offer rentals to keep your business in business while your asset is down. We provide short-term rentals with a three-day minimum and long-term rentals of late model light-duty records and rollback tow trucks. We distribute trucks from Atlanta and Dallas to all parts of the southeast and we can have it delivered in as little as 24 hours. For details on how to get your rental delivered ASAP, visit our website at rent a wrecker calm and go to the documents page or give us a call with any questions you might have at 770-898-1200. That's 770-898-1200 and we look forward to serving you.
Speaker 1:
You are listening to tow professional on-the-go podcast. I Want to thank each and every one of so many of you are sharing this. You know the podcast, so remember to like, review and share everywhere. I try to remind us if you want to see another industry pro on Toe professional on-the-go podcast, just call the hotline number down and I will do our best. The hotline number here is 706 409 5603 706 409 5603. So if you want to hear another industry expert Don't mean recovery, by all means just call the hotline number. So let me ask this of you, matt. It's not a football question, which you are an expert at, college football but let's, or is there any way to see reports for the vehicles who passes might have expired or Registrations that have maybe expired?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, absolutely so. There's a lot of reports that are in our system. You know, we're able to go as granular as letting a property management client know Exactly how many resident vehicles they have approved in the system and who's parking there at the property, just to make sure, obviously, that they account enough spaces For their lot. And then we also can, you know, provide alerts to the, to the tow Operators that are going through and doing the patrol, when it comes to expired tags. We keep reminders on that to alert the drivers so they can check to see if there's a new decal on the state that actually have it displayed on the place. And then we also have the ability to let the tow vendors know when a parking registration has expired, in terms of the resident passes expired or the guest passes expired.
Speaker 3:
With the introduction of our new license plate reader cameras that could be at the entrance and exit of the property, that's going to help with some of that real time. So you know, a lot of our cars are status driven right, whether it's got an active permit, an inactive permit, it's a restricted vehicle, it's a banned vehicle, right. These are different options that we have in the platform so they'll be able to get those immediate alerts. When those you know Statuses that come up in red in our program get a hit from that camera, it immediately alerts the dispatch so that they can take care of the situation. How those vehicles are moved.
Speaker 1:
Yes, see what I'm listening to you. I'm saying to myself okay, I, I've managed this parking lot for these 10, you know these people that hey rent to me for parking. All of a sudden, that person that we have told you gotta get off the property. You know you're not a regenerator anymore. You don't have a friend here anymore, you don't need to bring your vehicle here anymore. But if you know that, you can actually let me know electronically. That just brought their vehicle back on the property.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, and in a situation like that, dj, what they would do is just they would ban that license plate. That's simple as just putting in that tag number into our system on their ban list and that vehicle cannot be registered as a guest or a resident there at the property under any circumstances. So even if they got, you know maybe they caused issues to the property before Manager doesn't ever want them there, the board members or whatever the case may be, you know we'll prevent that plate from being able to be activated in our system under any circumstances while it's still on that active ban list.
Speaker 1:
Right, because a lot of times somebody will get out of hand at a party or something on the property and they banned that person. But sure nothing back in a vehicle of their own, and that's way I'd like to know about it. Mm-hmm, wow, they were dishes. Yet with so much data that's available today, with parking pass back down, I mean, it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I'll tell you, dj. It simply not only adds value to the tow owners in the industry, but it adds value to the property owners that are using it. Without a doubt, because phenomenal. Well, another one for you, matt. The last one is what is the process of setting up your system for a property, and how long does it usually take before your system is ready for the enforcement partners to start their patrol inside those facilities?
Speaker 3:
So the process it's typically, you know, we'll go through, we'll do the setup with them. We can customize the rules and regulations for what they want If it's free guest passes, paid guest passes, what the limits are on a monthly basis, what the limits are for the resident vehicles. So we first meet and set everything up with the property manager or the association, whoever the client is, and then I have an account management team that deals directly with the properties. And that's the great part too is we have a touch point with the clients just as much as these tow owners do. So we work together right. So if they let us know, hey, we're unhappy with our patrol because X, y and Z, we're right there at the pulse making sure that our clients are happy with the program and in essence, right, we're letting our tow owners know hey, you may want to go bring them some lunch or you might want to bring them a nice bottle of wine because they're not too happy with the way the patrolling is going right now. So you may want to break bread and kind of and get that stuff rectified, you know. So it really helps a nice partnership to kind of bridge the gap where maybe the tow company doesn't have as much exposure with the client as they would like.
Speaker 3:
We can kind of bridge that gap because of a lot of our national relationships that we have with the client and then, once the property gets set up, we provide orientation letters for them to distribute the information to the residents so that they could get registered online. The residents self register in the online program and they go through an approval process with the office and that's all digital. By the way, nothing's physical or manual in the office. Normally it takes a property about 30 days to do their rollout, depending on the size, and then our tow vendors go in there and they start doing their enforcement. So we work directly with the client to make sure they're comfortable for that first night of patrol and then you know from there. It's kind of you know it's self managed. The tow company does their rounds when they need to. They provide the reports in our digital system. Everyone's happy, they're transparent and you know there's no issues.
Speaker 2:
And that is fantastic, again providing solutions for the industry A to the parking passcom. And let me tell you, listeners, if you want to know more about Matt's company, go to parkingpasscom or give them a call and talk to the team 1-800-322-5535. And you can get the information today, I'm telling you, you owe it to yourself to check into this. It's another revenue stream and I tell you, from the way parkingpasscom has it laid out, you can get in there ina very cost effective manner and looks like they're holding hands on both sides of the equation to make sure that you have a partner every step of the way and I don't think you can beat that. Well, dj, back to you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you know what I wanted, ash Matt. I'm thinking about some of the people that are sitting there and they want to increase their private property in pounds. They really need to call you at the 800 number and talk to you about how maybe you could help them. Some people just need a little push. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I know exactly and we know how the tow industry can be sometimes, right, there's a lot of trust involved. It's the slow moving industry sometimes with certain things kind of doing that adaptation of new technologies and new processes. But from my side I mean, I've got test cases and business cases where I've worked with tow operators that have grown their private property in pounds exponentially just from using our program. Right, it provides consistency for the towing on the overnight side. It's also a great way to kind of transition some of their call in accounts into being more patrol accounts where there's more of that accountability. Right, the fear always is with the clients, with the property management clients, is making sure that it's not just the wild wild west while they're going out there. And if he said she said they said they had a decal, the tow operators said that they did it. And now we take that guesswork out of it because it's all digital and it's all tracked. Wow, which?
Speaker 1:
makes you big. There's a downer I started thinking about. You know people that are doing private property in. Poundear and airport.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
And they had master systems. There are so many people at the Atlanta airport that parked in the parking lot of the parking lot of the airport. Yeah, that's to drive and fly.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
But if they had a program they could cancel all that stuff.
Speaker 2:
Well, I can.
Speaker 2:
I can also tell you, dj. I've seen HLAs communities just in my area that have spent $40,000 on systems that just count. Countlessly have problems from initial investment, and when you can step in and, like Matt said, have the LPR systems at both ends of your properties and simplify the entire system, well then you end up with happier guests, happier residents and a happy tow company because they're able to do things and, like he said it, it eliminates or doesn't eliminate completely, but it lowers the amount of errors that you have, and that's key when dealing with these facilities.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, Well, here's my question to Matt. See, I'm telling all our listeners and I'm doing this on air. So, Matt, that's a good guy, he's very outgoing and very friendly and he's very nice to talk with. But if I was a toer and I had concerns, Matt do you mind if someone calls the 800 number just to ask you a question? You know, do you have to help their business improve?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, not at all. I mean I do a lot of. You know I'm very familiar with the industry. You know, sometimes you get these software companies and they're you know I don't want to label them all, but you know they're a bit, they're a bit nerdy, they like to sit behind the tube all day and they, they don't really have an understanding of kind of what the tow operators need to go through on a daily basis.
Speaker 3:
You know, from my perspective, when I first started the company, I did a deep dive in and try to understand the towing industry as a whole to see what they needed to make sure that I was bridging the gap on both ends right. So I'm more than happy to talk to folks that you know want to ask general questions, you know, pertaining to their business. You know I'm more than happy to shed my knowledge because you know I've gotten to this point now in my career and with the company that you know we've learned a lot of things along the way and I think it's just good karma to put it back out there for folks that are curious or have questions about things that they want answers to.
Speaker 1:
Well, good, I'm going to repeat the number 1-800-322. 5-535, and by all means, just give them a holler.
Speaker 1:
And just if you have a question run up the play field with Matt and Matt could say, yeah, we can help you with that. Or if you have guest vehicle systems that's not implemented as your place and you want to just do that with somebody, at least you could call Matt and say, listen, you help me with that part of it. Well, we need decals. This person has decals. Now we want to go to no decals at all. This is the person you know. That's the right person. All right. Aaron, I did my part.
Speaker 2:
Hey, please, I tell you, just like I said, this was going to be a great one and, without a doubt, Like I said, we always try listeners to bring the industry experts in, bring you the latest knowledge of the market so you can make those intelligent decisions on what's best for your business. And it's no different than what we did here today with this podcast with Matt Vallo, with parkingpasscom. President, CEO, Guys, if you want somebody behind your business that's got a passion to make it work like you do, he's your guy. So give him a call 800-322-5535. And, as always, pay attention to the next issue Toe Professional. It'll be hitting your email shortly with some of the latest products in industry a feature on spill hazmat containment and also lighting features, front to back to share the knowledge.
Speaker 2:
But again, dear Lord, I just thank you for this community. I thank you for our vendors in it. I ask that you continue to increase their knowledge, continue to bless them, to bring solutions to our owners and operators out there so they can further their business, their families, their health, and we ask that you bless them and be with them, Keep them safe, bring them back to their families and continue to bless this industry that we love In your name, amen. Listeners keep paying attention to Toe Professional. You made it the number one podcast in the industry. Hang in there and we'll continue to bring great information to you on a weekly basis Till next time. Thanks again, Bye-bye.