The Back Office Award: ZZPS

British Parking Awards 2021

ZZPS is a specialist supplier of back office services such as parking charge notice (PCN) management and enforcement for dozens of UK parking operators that.

ZZPS has modelled its business on providing solutions to companies to take the strain of administration by providing a seamless and professional service to their customers via a specialised contact centre. The back office solutions ZZPS offers thus allows its clients to focus on the day-to-day practical requirements of managing car parks.

Colin Arthur, ZZPS chief commercial officer, says: “As a specialist provider of outsourced back-office services it is our role to guide a client through their journey in parking. For some it is literally helping them to get to a point where they can issue their first PCN. For one new client, Digital Parking Enforcement, that began when they completed their British Parking Association Approved Operator Scheme (AOS) membership application. We worked with them to achieve access to KADOE data within a few weeks and removed all administrative effort from the business.”

Then, COVID-19 stunned the UK parking sector. According to a Department for Transport report, motor vehicle traffic decreased by 18.9% in 2020, the largest fall since records began. With more people working from home (WFH) and only essential journeys permitted, UK parking operators saw revenues decline as car parks across the country operated starkly below capacity.

“COVID-19 presented an existential threat to our clients,” said Arthur. “In March 2020, therefore, we asked ourselves: ‘What can we do to ensure our clients survive?’ The answers was to ensure our clients navigated the challenges of 2020, we formalised the following objectives:

1. Adapt ZZPS team roles and pivot to a work-from-home model within 24 hours
2. Ensure service continuity
3. To offer clients revenue-maximising opportunities
4. Optimise the debt collection process in ways that produced net positive outcomes for all stakeholders.

During the first national lockdown, ZZPS’s senior management team held daily Zoom meetings to strategise and ensure business as usual. It wrote to clients to assure them of business continuity.

A WhatsApp group was created to encourage staff to communicate and share experiences, and the company offered out-of-hours support to staff and clients. “The senior management team collectively leads the back office solution in our mission to leverage our collective expertise to eliminate client problems and enable them to focus on their primary business,” says Arthur. “Amid the COVID-19 crisis, it was paramount this mission was achieved. See supporting document for further information.

“To ensure service continuity throughout 2020, we made a transition to work-from-home (WFH). As a cloud-enabled business, ZZPS transitioned to a WFH operation on 27 March 2020 with zero disruption to maintain seamless business continuity whilst ensuring the health, safety and well-being of all staff. To protect and promote high morale, we prepared a fact sheet containing home-working guidance, instituted weekly team meetings via Zoom, including furloughed staff, and arranged virtual socials, quizzes and light-hearted debates. Where the relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions allowed, we permitted certain staff to return to the office. Particular individuals told us that the isolation had negatively affected their mental health, which we sought to address immediately.”

Client Lee Hales, operations director, Saba Park Services: “Saba Park Services has worked in partnership with ZZPS for over six years managing the challenging debt collection element of our business. They have assisted us in being more efficient, through taking on work streams that allow us to concentrate on core business. The level of communication and therefore customer service pertaining to what is a complex, process driven, and adversarial aspect of our service delivery for clients is first class.”