Service Standards
As I am sure many of you have heard, bids for a potential lease of our parking management were returned to the University on May 30. Our leadership and financial team are reviewing the offers to ensure they make financial sense for the university. A decision will be made by June 8.
While this process unfolds, I wanted to give you a little more detail on something I’ve only touched on before: service standards. We are committed to ensuring that any vendor we choose would provide excellent service and properly maintain our garages and parking lots.
In fact, to make sure that happens, we included 100 pages of operating standards into the leasing agreement detailing what kind of service and quality an operator must provide.
The standards cover a broad range of services that include everything we currently do today to support parking – like snow removal, making large and small repairs to lots, and continuing the service we currently provide regarding battery jumps, flat tires, running out of gas etc. Any vendor who submitted a bid agreed to these terms just by submitting their offer.
An operator would need to address parking-related issues in a timely manner or risk jeopardizing the contract. We would use customer feedback and contract performance reviews to monitor operator performance. In addition, an operator would face penalties for failing to meet standards and would have to go through remediation. Any serious violations could mean the agreement would be terminated and the university would take back the operations (while keeping the up-front payment we received).
As we wait on the announcement, I’ll keep answering questions and providing updates. Also, I don’t want to forget to mention that we’ve updated the Frequently Asked Questions on the website once again – please take a moment to check them out.