As you begin exploring potential vendors for mobile pay parking technology, it’s important to approach the decision making process with a firm grasp on what to look for outside of the sales pitch and the app’s homepage. This will help you choose a solution that is appropriate for your parking environment and will last for years to come. Here are our recommendations for requirements surrounding your mobile pay parking app:

1. Security

The security of your application is of utmost importance, which is why we listed it first. You want to feel 100% confident in the security measures your provider is taking to collect data and process payments. A potential vendor should be compliant with the following: PCI DSS

Service Level 1 Compliant: A PCI DSS Service Level 1 compliant provider has proven their ability to not only process credit cards in large volume, but also maintain the highest level of security while doing so. But keep in mind, this should be a requirement whether the vendor processes credit card payments or not. Don’t take a chance on vendors without the proper certification – you will be opening yourself up to a heightened exposure of risk.

SSAE 16 Compliant: SSAE 16 compliant vendors have the necessary processes in place to remain compliant in day-to-day activities. This additional certification ensures you that the provider has the proper gates and processes in place around human resources and businesses activities.

Cybersecurity Insurance Policy: This policy will protect you and the provider in one of the worst case scenarios – if there is a security breach of your mobile payment platform. As you can tell, this one is extremely important.

2. Relevant Experience

Since mobile pay parking technology is a relatively newer payment method in the parking industry, it can be hard to gauge the appropriate amount of experience to require from potential vendors. While a newer market offering, we recommend requiring at least three years of relevant experience, as well as five relevant references from a vendor. These systems are complex and should be backed by experience and extensive knowledge that’s applicable to your parking environment. Inquiring about a vendor’s number of launches just in the past year will be very telling. Also, hearing from potential vendors’ current clients with similar needs as yours will give you a well rounded look into all aspects of their offerings including security, technology, implementation, and support.

3. Innovation

Another major component in the vendor selection process is evaluating their level of commitment to continued innovation. How often are they pushing updates to clients? What’s the most recent update they released? What new product features are in the pipeline? You want to work with a technology partner who offers more than just the product, but a vendor who continues to push updates, innovate within their own app, and is a valuable long term partner.

Download the full Mobile Pay Buyer’s Guide 

4. Flexibility

In addition to continued product innovation, a provider’s flexibility is extremely important. Vendors achieve this flexibility with an open API (Application Programming Interface) architecture. An open API-based system facilitates the push and pull of data between various parking systems. This can include a push and pull of mobile pay data to and from meter hardware, handheld devices, LPR technology, and other existing systems that may be in place. This is very important to you because this means no matter how your agency grows and which providers you work with in the future, your mobile pay parking vendor will seamlessly integrate with any of them. This is a future-proof solution.

5. Timeline

When would you like to see your mobile pay parking solution up and running? Create a definitive timeline and be sure that the potential vendor can meet this (within reason, of course). It’s disheartening to select a vendor and then wait over a year’s time to begin installation. How long is their average deployment? Do they have an implementation schedule in place? Vendors should create a project schedule with milestones and completion dates in order to follow this timeline and meet a launch date.

6. Support

As your agency researches the right mobile pay parking provider, heavily consider the level of ongoing support that the company offers. Will you have a dedicated project manager during your launch? Will you have a dedicated client support team member after you’ve launched? These questions are important to ask. With a dedicated project manager, you’ll be able to easily give feedback and be sure that deadlines are met. A dedicated client support team member is critical to the ongoing success of the partnership. When questions arise or changes come up, you want to be able to rely on your provider for their continued support.