IPMI IN ACTION

/IPMI IN ACTION / COMMUNICATION The Email Model That Transfers to Your Organization

By Matt Penney, CAPP

“Y ou should apply for that job at Baylor.” It’s not entirely uncommon for my wife’s suggestions to echo down rooms in our house. Usually, the requests revolve around the kids, the dog or an item that needs my attention. Applying for a new job, the suggestion of a move—these words floating through the house carried more weight than the normal conversations.

I was happy with my job and grimaced at the challenges of moving with two small kids in tow. My wife thought this director of parking opportunity at Baylor was worth a look. Happy wife, happy life. That was a little more than 10 years ago now. Baylor called. I liked what I saw in the opportunity and they saw potential in me. The rest is what they call history. One thing about my wife: She has great intuition.

Even with a decade in managing public transportation, I was unprepared for the drama related to placing four tires between two yellow lines. Baylor University is a campus with approximately 16,000 students. Once you include faculty, staff, visitors, and assorted contractors, there are essentially 20,000 individuals with some interest in parking on campus. Parking Services had one administrative assistant who attended to all frontline parking contacts. That’s a ratio of … well … 20,000 to one.

Shifting to Email

The field supervisor was pulled out of the “field” and into the office. Both counter interactions and phone calls required that a single employee engage with a single customer. We needed to find a way to do business differently. Baylor’s solution was to focus on email communication. Those who emailed were more satisfied with a reply within the business day (or the next day), and this subtle but significant time gap provided the breathing room our team needed.

There were several positives about shifting to email, first of which was a reduction in schemers (liars) who might waste our time for 45 minutes in our lobby but were extremely hesitant to commit their story into a written format. Staff were shielded from hostile and sarcastic comments. There seemed to be a comfort, a separation, in receiving and replying from the non-personal departmental email account.

Obviously, not all email interactions are simple. Unlike verbal interactions, individuals were able to invite a wide audience to participate by CCing them into the conversation. The written format also left a more obvious trail when you might desire to sidestep a specific topic or question.

These more difficult emails were my responsibility. What developed next may not have been intentional but was an offshoot of my personal thought process. I was responding to multiple very similar

situations and wanted a system, a strategy to approach all of the correspondence.

I replied to hundreds of emails each semester. There were victories that made me feel like a New York Times bestselling author. There were mistakes that reminded me I struggled in high school English. Rabbit holes were everywhere. Mentally, notes were made on each success and failure (it’s only a failure if you don’t learn from it).

There were patterns and lessons—five of them. 1. Quick responses are emotional re

sponses. Whether from frontline staff, me, or the customer, quick responses were emotional in nature. Occasionally it was a jubilant, all caps “THANK

YOU!” More frequently, the emotional sentiments were just as direct but sometimes less appropriate for this article. A silly goal developed: To engage an individual in such a way that it

coaxed them out of “fight or flight” and into a more cognitive frame of mind. I remember sitting around with staff re-reading a response draft for the sixth time—we would hit send and start the timer. If the customer didn’t respond in the next 30 minutes, we considered it a small victory. 2.Mitigate emotional conductivity. Injecting our emotions or pointing out mistakes was never helpful.

Phrases like, “this is a simple misunderstanding” became common go-tos. Perceived mountains were reframed by our office as molehills. 3.Brevity is important. While an individual might send a five-page manifesto of complaints, they expected a concise response. Long, detailed explanations (if actually read) were torn apart by customers with agendas. Response drafts were edited like a sinking ship. If a word or phrase was deemed unnecessary, it was deleted into the abyss. 4.Opening greetings are significant. Surprising results started to surface. While we spent most of our time crafting the body of the message, it was the opening greeting that had the most impact. If we connected early in the message, customers seemed more willing to extend patience and flexibility. The conclusions of emails, conversely, carried very little weight. 5.Responding—or not—matters. In a verbal conversation, proximity and time create a socially expected response and not responding creates an uncomfortable awkward silence. Email conversations involve distance and are far less defined. Not answering or purposefully choosing the timing to continue the conversation was empowering, and we used this to our advantage. There was also a point where the time and emotional investment were counterproductive. Some rants are not looking for a response; some are not worthy of one.

The Results

I knew we were on to something with our developing format when we could start predicting results. With great accuracy, we began forecasting the most likely direction of the conversation. We were winning more often with far less drama. The confidence carried over into our emotional boundaries. Rude words bounced off as we faithfully jumped into our email playbook.

One night, my wife was venting on the challenges

Send Me Your Emails

I have enjoyed the opportunity to present what I have learned and travel to parking operations and associations across the U.S. With new travel and social distancing restrictions, I am excited to partner with IPMI to share these email lessons in a new unique format. For the

next four months, IPMI members can send me actual emails for review, and I’ll return with

a suggested roadmap for response. These emails don’t have to be exceptional cases—the format is going to work best on repetitive contacts that are not currently producing the desired outcomes. The exceptional ones are fun to read too! The more unique emails will be featured in a monthly blog for IPMI.

It’s an unorthodox approach to training, at a very unorthodox time. It is designed to benefit and fit the needs of IPMI members. Until we have the chance to see each other face to face again, let’s keep learning and moving forward together. It’s going to be an interesting ride; you never know what people might say!

Send me your organization’s emails at AskMatt@ParkingMobility.org.

of being a teacher in public school when she mentioned she received an aggressive email from little Johnny’s parents. She read me her drafted reply and everything inside of me cringed. The forecast for that email chain was “storms ahead.” As coolly as I could, I suggested two simple modifications before she hit send. The next day, she read back a letter from Johnny’s mom. Things were moving in a good direction. During the next year, she and I walked through several parent emails together and the same techniques were working for her,in a completely different setting! She now shares the techniques with her teaching partners.

The parking industry is not for the faint of heart. It is also an industry full of planners and system builders. That part of the industry fits me well. So many others have helped me along the way. This is one of the reasons I enjoy sharing the email pathway Baylor has carved out in IPMI’s trainings.

When I started at Baylor, I remember sitting mentally blank in front of my computer not knowing where to begin a response. Now, I smile at the automated word suggestions provided by my iPhone. It’s almost as if the phone has laid out the first sentences of where the conversation needs to go. There is a calm, a confidence in having a tested roadmap to travel by. ◆

MATT PENNEY, CAPP, is director of parking and transportation at Baylor University and a trainer for IPMI. He can be reached at matt_penney@baylor.edu.

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• On-street parking without time limits • Chalking tires • On-street parking without time limits • Chalking tires

• Citation counts with LPR • Shared parking • Airport I’ll take my employee parking benchmarking • EV planning ratio • Categorizing bikes, scooters • Mobile payments • Restoration services RFP • Parking garage  res • Ridesharing staging agreement • Using data e ectively • Unbunmorning co ee with Forum, please. dled parking • Installing and removal of meter poles • Street sweeping operations • School permits in RPP zones • Customer loyalty programs • Meter hoods • Fees for EV charging • Parking enforcement of oversized vehicles • Ramp/garage speed signs • Art murals on

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garage facades • Parking revenue audit RFP • Pre-payments and reserved parking • Disabled parking • Camments and reserved parking • Disabled parking • Cam

eras on campus • Booting policies • Escalating citation eras on campus • Booting policies • Escalating citation  nes • Budgeting for annual garage maintenance • Designated on-street areas for rideshare • Space numbering methodology • Violation policies • Private-public partnership agreements • On-demand shuttle RFP • Parking deck agreements • Donor parking privileges • Gate arm unattended facility intercoms • Rotary car carousels • Bike-sharing polices • Reverse back-in parking • Boot and tow • Suicide in garages • Snow emergency plans • Passenger counting systems • Salaries • Sample RFPs • Collection agency recovery rates • Car fire SOP • Compact car definition • Game day operations and tailgating • Capitalization rate for on-street spaces • Fireworks viewing atop parking garages • LPR retention policy • Pavement marking tape • Motorcycle parking ordinance • Alternative transportation apps • Expectant mother parking • Left side ADA parallel parking • Smartphone lot • Depreciation model for asphalt maintenance