Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Parking Permits - the new, even worse service!
I've just had the pleasure of interacting with our wonderful council parking service again, and thought others might find the tale a useful warning.
If you need visitor parking permits in a hurry - the system has changed (again!) and is now worse than ever:
- You can apply online, but that will take up to 13 days (according to the Council)
- You can visit the Customer Service Centre, but they can only sell you 8 permits.
Yes, you read that last bit right. The new, improved service allows you to stand in the long queues (see threads passim), only to discover you can only get 8 permits. You can order more for later delivery, but only get 8 on the day. This is apparently an edict from the Parking Service to "encourage usage of the online system".
For added hilarity, you don't have to pay there and then for the permits - oh no. That would be too simple, since you're there with a nice chip'n'pin terminal right in front of you. You have to give a phone number, and then apparently someone from the Parking Service will phone you to take payment for the permits. It's been a week since I visited, and no call so far. Maybe I won't have to pay after all.
Of course, you could use the online system. This is the one which starts by you emailing (!) someone to get an applicant ID (takes 3 days). You can then go to the website and order your vouchers and have them sent out (up to 10 days). Good luck if you have anyone visiting in the next two weeks.
Given the dog's breakfast that is the online system (thanks Civica!) I'm not surprised that people still choose to use the Customer Service Centre. So rather than improving the online system, the Parking Service has decided to break the existing system to make online look good in comparison. What a stroke of genius.
If it wasn't so sad, the Byzantine complexity achieved in a system for issuing visitor parking permits would be rather impressive.
Talking to the Customer Service staff, they're well aware the system sucks, but are powerless to effect change. So they end up dealing with disgruntled customers all day. I did suggest that the head of the parking service would like to spend some time on the front line, but the nice lady questioned my sanity for suggesting such an improbable event.
Tags for Forum Posts: bad, council, customer, parking, parking permits online, permits, service
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Clive, if I didn’t think Haringey residents should have a better Parking Service I wouldn’t spend any time or effort posting on this or related threads.
Should it be improved as a matter of urgency? Of course. Although it’s hardly the most urgent problem facing the Council.
What should councillors do about it? Please read my response to Malcolm. And I’m glad to be joined by Karen Alexander and others.
Should I get angry? To be frank, there are many more things to get angry about. In fact I won’t even call a huff and leave in it. (From Duck Soup and pushing eighty. But still worth a smile.)
You’re right that “poor systems are designed or allowed or continued by individuals, they are not like the weather.” That’s precisely one of W.E. Deming’s points. But he advocated focusing on understanding and changing systems – not on who is to blame.
P.S. I was wondering when "MS Windows" was going to put in an appearance. Out of curiosity, did you ever read R.D. Laing’s book: Knots?
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Alan, you can add "DOS-Windows" to your list of my predictable pet peeves. You might even assign a number to it. Happy new year, BTW!
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Permalink Reply by Nilgun Canver on
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Dear Malcolm, Happy New Year! Many thanks for your comments. Although, we have many satisfied customers it's always good to have a feedback to learn from everyone's experiences. This is no doubt essential for our service improvement. Yes, the process of ordering resident visitor permits can indeed take up 13 days. As you have quoted this is split between 2 clear stages of verification of residency (3 days) and order completion of permits (up to 10 days). It is vital that an identity verification process is completed. This is a process that many other providers offering services across the internet have in place for general security and more specifically Data Protection reasons. Traffic Management also need to ensure that permits are only purchased by those who live within a Controlled Parking Zone. We have recently introduced the online option and looking into improving the service even further. Your response to Alan is very helpful. I am sorry that you have not been a satisfied customer. If you send me an e-mail with your details nilgun.canver@haringey.gov.uk I'll be happy to investigate what has happened in your particular case. All your other points I'll be discussing them with officers in detail when I meet them on Thursday. Thanks again. Nilgun
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Someone has to come up with a way to treat long term and therefore easily identifiable, council tax paying residents better than the shifty, ne'er do wells that all parking's customers are assumed to be. Anyone?
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Permalink Reply by abstractjuz on
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We tried to register with the online system to purchase new visitor parking permits in late December '11 but our current permits were so old and out of date that they didn't have the required 'VS' permit number.
One short, painless phone call to the council got us registered online. We received the required registration/purchase link via email in under 1 hour.
We did have to use the log out/log back in technique to purchase more than one type of permit which is something that needs to be sorted.
The permits were with us in less than 7 days - even with Christmas and New Years taken into account.
FYI - I asked about exchanging our old, out of date permits and was told they could be exchanged by sending them, along with an SAE and a short explanatory letter to the attention of the 'parking and traffic manager' to:
London Borough of Haringey
PO Box 55235
London
N22 9DF
UK
The new, exchanged permits also arrived (at no extra cost other than the stamps) within about 1 week.
Our experience of the system was pretty good. One small problem was dealt with efficiently and our order was delivered as promised. I hope that info helps.
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Permalink Reply by Mook on
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Absolutely pathetic. Reading this reminded me I have indeed requested an online ID thingy and not heard a thing from them since, around 5 weeks ago. Shoddy.
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Permalink Reply by Julia on
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Me too - I emailed them on 10 Dec and not a peep since then. I've just chased them so let's hope that works. I'm very disappointed having praised and defended them on another thread, somewhat prematurely it now seems!
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I tried again the other day and wrote "2nd request for online ID - please reply" - I got a reply. It worked but the system is slow in that you need to go in each time as someone else has described to do 1hr, 2hr or daily tickets, you can't just add to a basket and purchase at the end. They arrived, in the past they've been sent recorded delivery which can be annoying if you're not in during the week, though this way they may not arrive, a lot of my mail seems to go awol....
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Hi, many thanks for raising this. Officers have advised me that all email requests from 10th December to access the online resident visitor permit system were responded to within two working days. If you are willing to provide a copy of the email they sent, I will arrange for a further investigation into this matter nilgun.canver@haringey.gov.uk Thanks.
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Thank you Nilgun, I have just emailed you copies of my emails as I have still had no response, nor to my follow up email sent last week.
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Well thanks to Nilgun's very prompt intervention the Parking Infrastructure Manager has looked into this for me and sent me copies of two emails that were sent in response to my emails.
HOWEVER, I never received these in my Outlook email. Luckily Virgin offers a webmail service which I use as an archive. I still could find no trace whatsoever of the first email but with a fair bit of digging I uncovered the more recent response which Virgin had marked as a potentially unsafe phishing email and therefore never delivered to either my webmail inbox or my Outlook account. I've never had this happen before so wonder if this has happened to some of you too.
I've suggested that if nothing else the web page could be updated acknowledging the problem and with a message asking people to add the Permits-Vouchers@haringey.gov.uk email address to their address book when they email to request the online ordering details so that their response will be received – it’s a rather clunky solution but one I’ve seen several companies use.
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