SpotHero Settles in with UJET

Chicago-based SpotHero lets drivers reserve parking spaces at thousands of garages, parking lots, and valets in major cities across the United States and Canada. The company, which was founded in 2011, caters to a largely mobile user base that contacts support as needed via their smartphones.

Phone calls are indeed central to its business, but SpotHero was driving around in circles with its outdated and piecemeal telephony equipment and its unreliable service provider.

So in September, SpotHero turned to UJET to provide its customer support telephony infrastructure. The company installed UJET’s IVR product, which includes full on-boarding support, voicemail, direct access points, and overcapacity deflection, along with UJET’s internal data visualization and workforce management application programming interfaces, which plugged in seamlessly to SpotHero’s Monet Software WFM system.

SpotHero recently added the UJET mobile software development kit to its iOS app, extending the relationship with UJET beyond telephony to a full-service customer experience solution with integrated triggers that allow agents to prompt customers to send photos, screenshots, videos, and text input, as well as verify through fingerprint, all in real time. SpotHero is also testing the UJET chat product.

“There are so many companies out there that say they streamline customer support, but none of them do it quite like UJET,” says Nate Peace, support operations manager at SpotHero. “At SpotHero, we pride ourselves on our customer service. Switching to UJET allows us to maintain world-class service even as we and our customer base of urban drivers scale.”

In evaluating solutions, SpotHero had several very basic requirements. For one, it needed to maintain a high level of service. Also high on SpotHero’s list of priorities was a solution with an intuitive implementation and simplified cost structure. The majority of other providers reviewed by SpotHero had very expensive per-minute voice charges and an implementation process that would take weeks, with a team of engineers needed to make it happen. They just weren’t realistic.

“We also needed something that was customizable so that when a customer calls, we can take their information and connect him with the right [agent],” Peace said.

Real-time reporting and historical data were also on the must-have list to improve scheduling and forecasting.

After connecting with Anand Janefalkar, founder and CEO of UJET, and talking with the UJET team, Peace realized the platform fulfilled all of his criteria. In fact, there were obvious advantages SpotHero saw in UJET that the company could not find anywhere else. On top of the most favorable pricing structure, the service-level expectations within UJET were incomparable.

When it comes to customer service, Peace defines success as “a friendly, effective, and efficient experience.”

With UJET, SpotHero has seen a 20 percent decrease in telephony training overhead, a 70 percent reduction in per-minute voice charges, a 50 percent reduction in the number of abandoned calls, and a 55 percent reduction in total telephony expenses.

Most of all, Peace is excited about expanding the UJET experience for both SpotHero’s agents and customers. “Our [agents] have gained improved morale seeing that our company wants to provide them with the best of what’s out there,” Peace added.

“For SpotHero, we’ve always prided ourselves on our customer service. Switching to UJET helps us further deliver on our commitment to make life easier for drivers by helping them find, reserve, and pay for parking,” Peace states.

“Since partnering with UJET, we’ve continued to see and benefit from their product’s increasing strength and reliability,” Peace continued. “We’ve experienced above a 99.95 percent [service level agreement], along with added administrative customization. UJET has proved to be a great partner and continues to do so.”

The Payoff 

Since switching to UJET's IVR solution, SpotHero has seen the following results:

• a 55 percent reduction in total telephony expenses;
• a 20 percent decrease in telephony training overhead;
• a 50 percent reduction in the number of abandoned calls; and
• a 70 percent reduction in per-minute voice charges.