Exclusive: Interview with Commends Director Product Management, Martin Moser

Commend International is one of the largest global suppliers of communication and security solutions with an emphasis on intercom systems. For the parking industry they offer optimal communication between all parking areas and the control center. With intercom terminals, control systems, servers and software, Commend garantuees maximum security for all types of parking facilities. Parking Network had the chance to talk with Martin Moser (left), Commends Director of Product Management, about the importance of a high quality intercom system in a parking facility.

With a wide range of products in diverse countries around the world, how do you see changes within these countries affecting your product and business there?

“Over the past decade, our entire communication product portfolio has come to reflect the growing worldwide demand for security solutions, especially in the ever-growing urban mega cities. For us as innovators this means that we had to focus more and more on solutions that go far beyond normal workaday security communication systems. Integration of third-party security equipment such as fire alarm or evacuation systems, for example, is becoming increasingly important. This also leads to all sorts of interesting challenges in terms of the acoustic technology as the backbone of the overall security solution. And then there are the widely reported tragic incidents of violence in public buildings and areas all over the world, which have also confronted us with new challenges and the need to come up with specific solutions for our customers.”

“As we all know, the Parking industry is facing profound changes as well. There are many ongoing developments that also pose new challenges for us as providers. One example is the ongoing trend of networking multiple car parks for centralised technical servicing and communication using latest Control Room technology. Then there are emerging trends such as electric vehicles, which impose new requirements and standards on car park operations: e-charging stations, for example, and the appropriate POS and accounting systems that go with them. As always when there are new technologies involved, professional communication equipment is required to provide instant support to users if need be.”

“Progressive urbanisation has jacked up the demand for both parking space and fast, high-quality customer service with security communication as a critical hub technology – a trend that will likely continue in the foreseeable future. Self driving vehicles are another major factor that we think will affect the parking business, requiring automated processes and relying on instant, fail-safe control and communication.”

Why is a good intercom system important for parking garages?

“Parking garages are challenging environments, both in terms of the equipment used and the 'stress level' of patrons in case of unplanned events - having trouble getting out of the garage or using the pay-on-foot machine, for example, or any kind of emergency situation.”

“As, clear, uninterrupted communication is essential, the real proof of a communication system is in its ability to deal with the many acoustic challenges: loud traffic noise, echo effects and other interferences that can render sub-standard communication equipment useless. For control room staff, speech intelligibility is crucial when it comes to providing superior customer service and reacting quickly and appropriately in emergency situations. Only if they can understand customers well and assess situations right away will they be able to act competently and provide best-in-class assistance and service.”

What is important for a parking manager to take into account when purchasing an intercom system?

“When selecting an intercom system, there are several important points to consider as a car park operator:”

• The solution should either rely on dedicated hardware for intercom systems or be able to utilise existing IT hardware resources, with the Intercom application running on a highly fail-safe virtualised server platform where available (e. g., VMWare, Cytrix or HyperV) in both cases the focus should be on full system availability in case of a server failure.
• System components should provide solid investment protection with guaranteed long-term backward compatibility
• The solution should offer convenient, easy-to-maintain plug-and-play interfaces to the operator’s parking management system.
• A key requirement is usability, with a focus on minimising time per call, easy-to-use control desk reporting options, and reliable, automated documentation functions, such as lip-synced audio/video recording.

Explain the phrase “communication makes the customer service”?

“Especially in the parking environment, good customer communication services alone will not necessarily attract new customers, but a bad customer communication service can drive away existing customers quite easily.”

“Imagine a car park customer at the exit gate on the way to an important meeting who calls the service desk over the intercom to report a problem, but all he hears from the other end is some unintelligible mumbling and static noise. Or imagine the frustration of the service desk operator who cannot help the customer at the other end because the traffic noise in the background is drowning out what they are saying. Good intercom systems will ensure crystal clear intelligibility at any noise level - a critical requirement to enable fast issue resolution and ultimate customer satisfaction.”

About Commend

Commend is one of the world’s largest providers of high-end Security Communication systems. A member of worldwide security solution provider THK Group, Commend International was founded in 1971 and is headquartered in Salzburg, Austria.

With app. 160 employees at its headquarters, Commend is well integrated into THK Group’s 4.800 worldwide staff and also maintains an international partner network of more than 400 people (spanning more than 40 countries ). The corporate culture has a strong focus on people and cooperative partnerships to ensure outstanding user value with systems known for their superior reliability, convenience and voice intelligibility / clarity of voice transmission.

Commend Control Desks and Intercom Stations for security communication solutions incorporate speech, video, data and third-party equipment control. They embrace the most useful networking and mobile technologies and serve millions of users every day, for example in the German automobile industry, at public transport services such as the London Underground, as well as numerous buildings, road traffic and parking facilities the world over.

Commend offers dedicated turnkey solutions for Hospitals, Nursing Homes, Parking, Lifts, Prisons, Police, Heavy Industry, Airport, Rail and Transport infrastructure, Military and many other Top Security communication applications.

For more information, visit www.commend.com.