Businesses Manage Life's Irksome Details

JACKI LYDEN, host:

A small enterprising business in Denver is hoping to cash in on that ever-lucrative business: airport parking. If you've ever wished you could drive up to your very own private garage, park in your very own little covered space and then be chauffeured to your flight, they can make it happen for a price. For just $15,000 for a five-year lease, all this can be yours, your own private, no-one-else-can-park-there airport garage. Chris Thompson works with Airport Resort Parking, and he joins us from his office now in Denver.

Hello, Chris Thompson.

Mr. CHRIS THOMPSON (Airport Resort Parking): Hi, Jacki.

LYDEN: Well, I think everybody has wished that they didn't have to look for a parking space at the airport, but $15,000?

Mr. THOMPSON: Well, it's actually for five years, so you get the garage for the entire year; it's yours to use anytime. And it's really for the people who keep their car at the airport for a long period of time, specifically a lot of second-home owners who have homes up in Vail and Aspen in the Denver area, and then people who maybe commute to work even and leave their car all week long.

LYDEN: So we are talking about people with some serious car change to fork over.

Mr. THOMPSON: Yeah. It's not going to be for the family vacation.

LYDEN: Have you had any takers yet?

Mr. THOMPSON: Yeah. We're 50 percent reserved for the first phase of 30 units. We've actually been surprised--while we were targeting these people in the mountains, it's the local businesspeople or people who are commuting--they lived here in Denver and then actually maybe are consulting on a job in Dallas and--are getting the garages for business and personal use, which is great. But it's not exactly who we were initially targeting.

LYDEN: Now we should also say that in addition to the 15,000 for the five-year lease, you're charging a monthly maintenance fee. It really is beginning to sound like a condo. And how much is that?

Mr. THOMPSON: Per month, $45, and that includes the shuttle and things like that to the airport.

LYDEN: Manicurist? Pedicure? No?

Mr. THOMPSON: No. No, nothing like that. But I'm sure for a price, we can work it in.

LYDEN: (Laughs) I would think. Chris Thompson is a partner at Airport Resort Parking in Denver, Colorado.

Thanks very much for joining us.

Mr. THOMPSON: Thank you.

LYDEN: And we've uncovered another enterprising company; this one is based in Jeffersonville, Indiana. They are debt collectors but with a very particular niche. All of you out there with an overdue or lost library book, hands up. Unique Management Services wants you to pay up. Kenes Bowling is their spokesman.

Mr. KENNIS BOWLING (Spokesman, Unique Management Services): We work with over 750 customer libraries in North America, and we'll begin our first customer in the United Kingdom in about a week; that's the Greenwich Public Library in England. And it works very, very well. One of the real critical things that's important to our customers is that not only do we help recover materials and unpaid fines, but that we also enable patrons to return to the library in good standing. So our approach is to be very gentle and basically appeal to the good side of people.

LYDEN: So you say something like, `Gentle reader, it's been so long since we've seen you. And we know you must be perusing those pages over and over again.'

Mr. BOWLING: Well, maybe not like...

LYDEN: `But, really, the next reader needs them much more.'

Mr. BOWLING: Yeah. Maybe not quite like that but very civil, very professional. Basically, it's just an encouragement.

LYDEN: And at what point does the word `credit rating' come into the discussion?

Mr. BOWLING: If the patron doesn't respond to the first notice, then we let them know in the second communication that credit reporting can occur if the obligation remains unresolved; that it's a serious issue and that there is something personal at stake if it isn't resolved.

LYDEN: Still, you are an entrepreneur as much as a monk of the page. What are you charging for your fees?

Mr. BOWLING: Our fees are less than $9 per account. We look at a fee of about $8.95 per account processed, and our customers report an average of a 5- to 7-dollar return on investment.

LYDEN: So it's been profitable for you.

Mr. BOWLING: Yes.

LYDEN: Have you heard some good excuses?

Mr. BOWLING: Oh, my gosh, yes. You know, we did a contest two or three years ago, and we asked our customers just to tell us what their most creative excuses were. And the one that won the contest was a lady who said she simply could not return her book--she had a single book out--because it was just the right thickness to support the leg on her dining room table. And so, you know, she just really had to--you know, had to leave it that way.

LYDEN: Well, Mr. Bowling, thank you very much for speaking with us.

Mr. BOWLING: Oh, you're quite welcome, Jacki. It was my pleasure.

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