Reinforcing the company’s focus on customer engagement, Taranto is collaborating with its clients on an Employee Exchange Programme. The idea of the Employee Exchange initiative was announced at Taranto’s User Group Conference in November last year. The Exchange Programme is a reciprocal arrangement in which one of Taranto’s Client Support Team and a member of the client’s Parking Services team have the opportunity to spend time onsite in each other’s offices, with the aim of achieving a better understanding of their respective organisations and operations. The first client to embark on the Exchange Programme was Manchester Council.
Danny Noctor, one of Taranto’s Technical Support Consultants, spent two days with Manchester City Council’s Parking Services Team to learn more about the client’s daily activities. Danny was familiar with Manchester’s operations through his work providing remote support for the client, but he jumped at the chance to meet the wider Manchester Parking Services Team in real-life. Danny’s role focuses on resolving client technical issues, but spending time with different client team members, seeing how they work together and understanding the inter-dependencies of the different client functions, shines a new light on his work.
Danny was introduced to many different teams during his time at Manchester, such as the technology consultants, as well as debt registration, first line back-office, appeals and finance functions. Working alongside Manchester’s first line teams helped Danny to get a better understanding of their day-to-day tasks. For example, he saw how the team deals with inbound requests such as correspondence related to a PCN. He observed how the team handles permit applications or password resets and these insights have given him a better understanding of the overall work of the Parking Services department and how they prioritise different activities.
Danny also met one of the senior parking enforcement officers, which he said was particularly useful to give him an insight into how the mobile version of the Taranto Parking Enforcement Solution is used daily on the streets.
Sitting down with different members of the client’s parking operations enabled Danny to understand not only the technical challenges, but also the workflows and pinch points experienced by clients. He returned to Taranto’s Liverpool office with a list of suggestions for improvements to the way that Taranto supports its clients, as well as some ideas for quick wins to enable his service delivery team colleagues respond more effectively to regular issues experienced by clients.
Manchester approached Danny’s employee exchange in a very structured way to make sure that both they and Danny maximised the opportunity. Manchester managers arranged meetings for Danny with representatives from all aspects of the parking team’s work, which enabled Danny to get a holistic view of the client’s operations.
As Danny explains: “It really helped that the Manchester team had thought about how they could make the most of my employee exchange experience. They made sure that I met all key team members and functions so that I could get a complete picture of the way they work together. It made such a difference that they had thoroughly planned my two days onsite.”
One of the key learnings that Danny observed was how the client teams interact and work together, which simply cannot be achieved by talking to clients on the phone.
Danny commented: “Everyone at Manchester was really welcoming and wanted to help me understand their perspective of using Taranto. Spending those few days onsite in Manchester has made such a difference to my understanding of the client’s needs from their parking enforcement system.”
He has shared his experience with his Service Delivery colleagues, and they are all looking forward to welcoming a member of the Manchester Parking Services team to Taranto’s Liverpool office for the next phase of the Employee Exchange Programme.
Read the case study of how Manchester City Council’s Parking Services is using Taranto to improve parking and mobility throughout the city.
“Spending those few days onsite in Manchester has made such a difference to my understanding of the client’s needs from their parking enforcement system.”
