We’re excited to announce a new enhancement to the Ocra platform: centralized management for drive-up digital payments!
In a nutshell, what this means is:
Operators and asset owners can now centrally manage rates and view inventory counts for active transactions through drive-up digital payment solutions from within the Ocra platform, just like they can for online reservations.
Essentially, like Ocra aggregates the aggregators for centralized rate and inventory management, we now have the ability to aggregate data from drive-up digital payment solutions.
What we do: no processing transactions; no marketing to customers.
Just all pulling all channels, all transactions, all inventory counts, all in one place.
But first things first, what are “drive-up digital payments“?
In the parking industry, solutions that allow customers to pay on site at a lot of garage using their smartphones have proliferated as a result of changing consumer patterns.
With an influx of solutions surfacing in the market, the language around how we, as an industry, refer to this type of technology has muddied a bit.
Predictably, we’ve seen some trademark erosion.
In the same way we broadly wield brand names like Kleenex, Chapstick, and Dumpster (did you know it’s called a “wheelie bin”? us neither!), words used to refer to the brands/solutions build by operators and tech vendors – “Scan to Pay”, “Scan2Pay”, “Tap to Pay”, “On-Demand Payments”, etc. – are being subsumed into the pool of default terminology.
As always, lack of standardization breeds confusion.
Here’s our effort to standardize:
“Drive-up digital payments” is a bucket term for solutions that enable customers to pay on site at the location in-app or by scanning a QR code, sending a text, or tapping their smartphone.
How can operators benefit from using drive-up digital payment solutions?
To break it down, drive-up digital payments are:
- Quick and contactless, reducing waiting times for customers entering and exiting facilities
- More cost-effective than traditional point-of-sale (POS) systems or payment terminals as there’s no need for expensive hardware, and transaction fees can be lower
- Secure, with stringent encryption and authentication measures in place
Additionally, drive-up digital payments can:
- Gather customer data that can integrated into marketing campaigns such as loyalty and rewards programs, encouraging repeat business and customer retention
- Reduce cash handling, streamlining accounting and reducing the risk of human error
- Enhance accessibility to a wide range of customers, including those who may not have access to traditional banking services or credit cards
- Decrease time and effort required for payment reconciliation and cash management
Which drive-up digital payment solutions can Ocra integrate with today?
Today, Ocra integrates with SpotHero & Arrive‘s drive-up digital payment solutions.
We have several integrations currently being worked on, and a few more on the roadmap, which you can reach out to us (info@getocra.com) to learn more about.
Additionally, if you’re an operator or owner with your own scan-to-pay/on-demand signage, our team can talk you through what integrating that channel might look like.
Does Ocra enable customers to pay/process drive-up digital payments? (Nope!)
To reiterate, just like Ocra isn’t an online reservations platform (we don’t market to consumers, nor do we process payments), we aren’t a drive-up digital payment solution, either.
Through sophisticated custom integrations, we’re able to de-silo data from online reservations platforms as well as drive-up digital payments platforms, pulling all of that transaction info into our centralized management platform.
This is a continuation of our centralized channel management that gives operators and asset owners even more data and more power to control all of their rates for all of their locations, all in one place.
Ready to learn more?
To see this functionality in action or discover what’s on our integrations roadmap, contact us at info@getocra.com. Our team would love to connect.
