One of the most difficult parts of having a totally cool downtown location is the parking. We try our best to make it as simple and customer-friendly as possible; we provide easy-to-follow driving and parking directions, and we offer to validate parking for guests who drive. We've set up validation agreements with a few nearby garages and lots, so we can stamp our customer's ticket and they can drive off without opening a purse or wallet. Then we bill our clients at cost for the validations. It's an add-on service that we make no money on whatsoever.

Sometimes people park in lots we aren't set up to validate. As a meeting was leaving, one guest quietly lamented that she parked in a lot that wasn't on our list. Having already Shifted our thinking, it was a short, but dramatic step to Engage our customer by offering to give her the cash she needed to exit the lot. She was amazed, and we treated it like another validation.

Why this is one of our favorite sparks:
Sure, a guest can just pay with their own money to get out of the garage, submit an expense report at work, wait 4-weeks for their check, drive it to the bank, deposit it, and have it in their account. But if we can just give her the cash, why not? It saved her a lot of time and effort, and it really didn't change our process a bit. This is what Engage is all about: discovering a customer need, and doing something about it.