Get to know Parkplex: how technology contributes to a warm welcome

Technology increasingly plays a role in the experience of users within a building. The innovation of the startup Parkplex is a good example of this. We speak to the owner of Parkplex, Daniël van der Berg about the company, hospitality and entrepreneurship.  

 By: Eline te Velde

Parkplex makes smart parking signs that personally welcome visitors. But the service goes further than that. With smart integrations it is possible to automatically pick up guests from existing reservation systems, send personal invitations and reserve a loading place in advance. In addition, the parking sign detects when the visitor has arrived and automatically sends a notification to the reception. Parkplex offers a complete service to welcome guests and visitors and reserve a parking space.

Warm welcome

This service is all about hospitality, Daniël explains: “Hospitality is very broad and occurs everywhere, not just at hotels and restaurants. Our ambition is to welcome people and give them a warm feeling before they even walk in. When we speak to a new party, we physically visit them and ask what hospitality means to their organization. This is a really important first step, because this is different for every organization.”

“We have the ambition to welcome people and give them a warm feeling. Even before they walk in somewhere.”

Daniël emphasizes that they do not want to automate hospitality: “It is not the case that you will no longer need a manned reception, because that is not hospitality. Our service can make the process more efficient and, for example, indicate when you need a receptionist.

Personal parking sign

Daniël got the idea for Parkplex during a customer visit. “When I arrived, they had reserved a private parking space for me. It was a blue sign with a P, under which a paper card was slid with my name and organization. I thought: oh how cool, they take me very seriously here. When I had a chat with the receptionist I discovered that she walks out every hour with paper tickets to hang on the parking signs. Brilliant, but a lot of work. On the way back I recorded a voice memo for myself and it contained the first idea for Parkplex.”

Prototype

But you're not done with a good idea yet. Daniël started working on a prototype together with a group of students from Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in Almere. “For the new minor Smart World, I was approached by a teacher who was looking for interesting cases that the students could work on. I pitched the Parkplex idea and that's how we started developing it. The first variant was a wooden cabinet. We could also have hired an agency to develop the product for us, but for the love of the process, we just did it ourselves.”

“We have encountered an incredible number of things. Imagine asking a furniture designer to design a car. We are not product developers at all, we develop software and not hardware. So this has definitely given me sleepless nights for the past two years, but we learned a lot from it and had an incredible amount of fun in the process.”

“Imagine asking a furniture designer to design a car.”

Parkplex is currently in the pilot phase and the signs are being tested at various companies. “We now mainly want to listen to the pilot group. We need time to learn and understand the market better. But I expect it will only become more important in the coming years. Parking spaces are becoming scarcer and more expensive and there is great inefficiency. This is where we can make a difference.”

Parkplex is still looking for companies that want to participate in the pilot phase. Are you interested or would you like to know more? Please contact us via www.parkplex.nl. Do you always want to be informed of activities and news from the industry? Then register for the newsletter.