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The launch of Arrive in early January was the culmination of months of work for our creative team. Rich McClellan, our VP Creative Director, explains why we chose the name Arrive and how it came to life.

What prompted the company’s decision to create Arrive?

When ParkWhiz parked its first car in 2007, route planning and in-car connectivity services were theoretical or, at best, luxuries. Today, these are essential components of people’s journeys. While our ParkWhiz and BestParking apps are strong, we - as a company - believe the future of parking and other mobility-related services lies within vehicles, navigation systems and other touchpoints. As a result, we decided that we needed a new way to talk about ourselves and the platform-based business we have worked to grow over the last several years.

Can you explain the steps you took to identify the name?

Naming is hard. I admire any company that makes this their business! No matter what you like, or what you think is perfect and brilliant, running it through the filter of what is already out there, taken or trademarked is a humbling experience.

To bring Arrive to life, we followed a few steps:

• First, we started big. We looked at hundreds of names spanning categories from the descriptive, to metaphors, conceptual and off-the-wall ideas. We asked employees across the company with different disciplines to share their ideas for variety.
• Then, we weeded it down by removing any unavailable names due to conflicts.
• Next, we identified the top six options, we solicited input once again from leadership.
• Finally, we selected the top three, which were submitted for trademark approval.

What is the meaning of Arrive?

Arrive is an intentionally broad and ambiguous name. There is an inherent positivity to it, an aspirational take on the end of a journey. It infers travel, yet is not weighted to either navigation or parking. Arrive describes where we currently are as a company, but is big enough to grow with us as we continue to add layers of functionality within and beyond parking.

Can you describe the brand look and feel? What tone were aiming to achieve?

With Arrive, we wanted to be bigger - establishing the brand as more than just a means of parking, but as a facilitator of a lifestyle. We like to say that parking is not the end point of a journey, but a transition between what you have to do to get there and what you want to do when you’re there. We opted to focus on the aspirational moments of when you arrive at your destination using unique photography perspectives and situations, and a bright and limited color palette.

Can you explain the logo?

All strong logos tend to have one single feature that makes them stand out. For example, the hidden FedEx arrow, the bite out of the Apple logo or the Amazon “A to Z” smile.

We went through hundreds of iterations of some really interesting, complex, and interpretive logos. In the end, we came back to a really simple mark that borrowed from the pin drop icon in our ParkWhiz and BestParking apps. Pin drops in logos are certainly not a unique, but by turning ours 90 degrees counterclockwise, it became a subtle and nearly invisible letterform - the A in our logo. It seemed an obvious and inevitable way of using a universally recognizable icon to telegraph mobility, navigation and a destination. It’s a way of hinting at what our company does, without limiting ourselves to automobile icons, signs or parking spaces.

Once again, autonomous vehicles were the talk of CES. But this year, in addition to the flashy new cars and technology showcased on the convention center floor, conversation centered around how long it will take for true autonomous vehicles to hit the road. While we are years out, it also became clear that connected mobility is here - today.

Virtually every vehicle coming off the assembly line now has a modem with internet connectivity. 5G promises to deliver lightening-fast bandwidth with negligible latency that will transform the nature of connected content and mobility services. Large consumer brands like Google, Amazon and Apple are focused on bringing convenient connected features and their content to drivers and passengers across the world. The promise of a driver pulling out of the garage having their coffee ordered automatically, their parking spot reserved and paid for, the nearest gas pump or EV charger primed and ready to fuel, and their route optimized to get to their first meeting on time seems like it should be available today. But there’s still a lot of work to be done to make that a reality at scale - and lots of collaboration between stakeholders. 

To address this opportunity, we were honored to host a compelling and thought-provoking forum at the outset of CES with our friends from ChargePoint and P97 Networks. The invite-only group of 100+ executives from automakers, big consumer brands, fleet owners, smart city proponents, technology companies, payment companies, service provides, public and private landowners, and more, discussed how we will all work together to bring the connected future to reality.

Key Takeaways from The Last Mile of Mobility Executive Roundtable

The Connected Car Will Become The Center Of Commerce on the Go.

Gone are the days of fumbling for your phone while driving. Your connected car is an extension of the tools you use every day - built as a platform and designed to integrate into all aspects of your daily life.  Moving from your kitchen to the car and on to work or play, the services you use every day will be embedded in your car and you will have instant access to your favorite entertainment, productivity, ecommerce, payment and service tools.   

It’s Not Just The Experience. It’s About The Relationship.

Just like real-life relationships, context is critical.  By leveraging data from a variety of sources, more customized and simpler experiences can be created - leading to lasting relationships with automakers or transportation providers and making it easier for customers to adapt to new modes of travel with the help of incentives. When a positive experience occurs, value and profit will follow.

Tech Standards Will Allow Customers To Consume On-The-Go Services.

Many connected services, such as parking and gas, are highly fragmented. Industry leaders must agree on open standards to consolidate the supply to digitally connect them, and bring it to the open market - allowing automakers, navigation partner and others a more seamless way to access their capabilities.

The Power Of Your Voice.

The future of voice belongs in the connected vehicle. By allowing drivers to actually start their journey outside of the car with a meeting reminder or morning wake-up from Alexa, for example, automakers can create a stronger user experience from start to finish. Voice is already proving itself to be a desirable feature, as more than 75 percent of people say they want the same in-home voice assistant in their car. Why? It’s a seamless experience.

Collaboration And Open Innovation Are Key.

Gone are the days of building closed systems. Today, automakers are focused on open innovation and collaboration with industry-leading service providers. By evolving digitally and creating an underlying platform in each vehicle, automakers can build on what’s already been created and leverage existing systems and partners to fulfill customer needs and desires.

While much work remains, we are inspired to continue working with our partners to innovate and bring new technologies and business models that benefits the entire ecosystem forward. If you’re interested in learning more or want to be part of the solution, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at yona@arrive.com.

OEMs can tap into $35B US parking market by following fundamentals

While the debate continues on how long before we will live in a fully autonomous vehicle world, the future of connected mobility is here, today. Virtually every vehicle coming off the assembly line has a modem with internet connectivity and every automaker, as well as large consumer brands, are focused on bringing convenient connected features to drivers across the world.

Soon drivers pulling out of their garage will have their coffee ordered automatically, the heat turned down at home, their parking spot reserved and paid for, the nearest gas pump primed and ready to fuel, and their route optimized to get to their first meeting on time. Navigation, fueling and parking will be anchor tenants of every connected car strategy — but just because you build it does not mean they will come.

Automakers and software builders must follow key eCommerce fundamentals in the car — just like you would in a mobile app or website.

The Opportunity

Fueling and parking are widely acknowledged as the keys to begin monetizing any connected car service. They are the things done most frequently in the car and are the most obvious starting points. OEMs have a huge opportunity to capture a share of these massive markets. The parking industry alone is a $35 billion market in the U.S., and the average American spends the same on parking each month as they do on gas, but with more frequent transactions. Building integrated services like parking and fueling can establish a transactional relationship for other services with a card on file and established trust between the automaker and customers.

Following eCommerce Fundamentals Will Maximize Connected Car Services

By mapping eCommerce fundamentals to a connected car experience, OEMs can begin tapping new revenue streams and creating loyal customers.

• Start with the basics — the funnel. Buying something in the car is no different than buying something on a phone-except you might be driving 60 miles and hour and the bar for safety and simplicity must be much, much higher. That said, there is still a funnel that starts with discovering the capability, then finding the product you want to buy, then transacting and finally consuming the service. Just like ordering something on Amazon or Groupon, customers need to know how to navigate each step of the funnel — and software makers need to obsess over each step. Each step needs to be instrumented to collect every bit of data possible — where did the customer start? How many steps did they take? What did they try to search for? Where did they abandon? Why did they abandon? Did they buy a second time? Each step in the funnel must have a clear purpose, must be laid out plainly to the user and must only be introduced if absolutely necessary.
• Create a no-brainer incentive to get the hard stuff out of the way early — getting customers to create IDs, passwords, enter credit cards or other info is usually the first and hardest step in any eCommerce funnel. A lot of smart apps will defer this activity until people have something in the cart and want to buy it. Others adopt a “rolling” onboarding process where they only ask for info as they need it. In a car, however, you can’t ask people to enter a credit card while they are driving, nor will they do it when they are sitting at a parking gate or fuel pump. It’s too much work for too little return. That means you may have to offer an otherwise rich incentive for customers to take care of this when they buy their car, or when they are at home or work before they head out. Putting $25 of free parking or a free oil change out there may be necessary to get people over this first critical hump. Then — once done, selling other services on the go becomes much, much easier.
• Know your customers’ context — and make assumptions on their behalf. To cut down on steps, use what you already know and infer some steps on behalf of the customer. If they are getting in their car at 8am on a Monday, assume they are going to work and offer a nearby fueling or parking location. If they are leaving work at 5pm, assume they are going home and don’t offer parking, but do offer to order dinner at their favorite restaurant.
• Use the data your customers already give to others. Leverage data to understand your customers’ habits and context around their needs, and deliver services against it. Integrate with personal assistants such as Amazon Alexa or Google Calendar to anticipate parking or fueling needs for appointments and other work and personal obligations. Pre-know that if they drive an expensive luxury sedan, they probably don’t want to park on the street or with a valet.
• Support and understand repeat behaviors. Getting someone to try something new one time is the easy part — getting them to come back and do it again and again is the true mark of a good experience and the best way to create a lifetime relationship with a customer. If you are selling parking or gas, it’s highly likely that customers will park or fuel at the same location again, so put a quick link to that transaction right on the home screen. Skip (but confirm) all the other details like payment, login, length of time or type of gas. The fewer the taps the better.
• Don’t reinvent the wheel. Customers get used to ways of doing things. When it comes to basic things like login, passwords, credit card entry, date and time selection and search interfaces, follow patterns established by others and copy generously. Make use of other known logins (Facebook, Google, Amazon) and payment solutions (Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal) to cut down on steps and data entry. These companies are successful for a reason — and there’s no shame in riding on their coattails. Innovation will come in how you integrate them, not whether you can create a better credit card entry or login experience.
• Strong customer support is critical. The world isn’t magically ready for your great services. Stuff will take time to roll out, and things will break and customers will experience failures. You need to back them up if you want to keep them engaged over the long haul. Offer support in a variety of channels, including text, online chat and social media, and keep hold time short. Proactively seek solutions to problems before customers call. At ParkWhiz, we proactively text all new customers to ensure their parking experience is going well. If an issue arises at a particular garage, the customer service team alerts all affected customers with instructions for what to do when they arrive. It costs a little more in the short run but as you build scale and repeat behaviors take hold, it gets a lot cheaper. As a result, the satisfaction of our customers is unrivaled with our app store ratings at the top of the transportation category.

Our team has experience building eCommerce experiences for leading brands like Expedia, Groupon, Redbox, Nordstrom and more — selling billions of dollars of goods and services online and through mobile apps. We’ve learned as a team what it takes to deliver a great online experience connected to a very offline and real world. At ParkWhiz, through our Arrive Network — our friction-free parking network — we are innovating to meet the needs of future drivers and connected and autonomous vehicles by applying these eCommerce principles to parking and other vehicle services. Interested in learning more? Please contact me at droarty@arrive.com.

(This post was originally published on Medium)