Slash Time To Market for Automated Parking Services
Cobalt Telephone Technologies (CTT), part of the Parkmobile worldwide group, is a leading provider of on-demand and prepaid mobile payments for on- and off-street parking. CTT specialises in end-to-end parking solutions which enable motorists to pay via a variety of a payment channels from traditional fixed line telephones to smartphone apps, mobile internet, fixed web, SMS and interactive voice response (IVR) systems.
Today, the most well-known product in the CTT portfolio is the award-winning solution, RingGo.
Background
RingGo is the UK’s leading cashless parking system – provided nationwide by local authorities, rail operators and private companies as an alternative to pay and display parking. RingGo’s 8.7 million registered motorists use it to pay for parking, by credit or debit card. Motorists simply register by app, online or intelligent IVR, the first time they use the service. Thereafter, RingGo recognises the mobile phone and recalls the information provided.
CTT originally used a fairly basic interactive voice response (IVR) solution to communicate with customers and deliver payment options. Over time, however, as the public usage of digital self-service channels and automated information delivery proliferated, CTT realised it needed to enhance and scale up its service and put a better platform in place to support the IVR capability its customers were increasingly looking for. Critically too, as CTT was operating in multiple industries, it knew it needed a robust platform capable of running multiple different IVRs.
Solution
These were among the key reasons why CTT opted to implement the Enghouse Interactive Communications Portal (CP), an open standards-based development platform from leading communications expert, Enghouse Interactive. CP significantly reduces the time, cost and complexity of creating and deploying tailored voice self-service and communications solutions.
The rationale behind the choice of CP is one that still holds true today: namely, that it is one of the best platforms for rapid prototyping and development. CTT is continuously innovating and focuses on putting out new products onto the platform quickly in order to drive market growth and stay ahead of the competition.
Results
“We have a strong business development pipeline and when we bring in new business, it’s usually on short timescales. So, it’s crucial that we are able to develop prototypes quickly,” added Spacagna. “What the Enghouse Interactive Communications Portal has enabled us to do is to get these out in a matter of months, sometimes even weeks, on some of our smaller projects.”
“The key is ease-of-use,” Spacagna continues. “The CP interface is intuitive and there is a good help system. Using the platform has enabled us to significantly cut development time in addition to reducing the cost and complexity of creating and deploying tailored solutions.
“It also provides a full software solutions stack,” he adds. “That’s a big win for us also. Without that capability, we would probably need to go off and start searching for other pieces of software in order to build up a complete solution.”
