Serge Smets, Business Unit Manager
Serge Smets is the Business Unit Manager at WPS Belgium. With a broad range of responsibilities and a clear focus on people, Serge plays a key role in the daily operations of our Belgian team. In this interview, he shares what drives him, how he sees the future of parking, and what gives him the most satisfaction in his work.
What is your role within our company and what exactly does your role entail?
S: I wear multiple hats. Officially, I am Business Unit Manager, but I am also involved in sales, project management, and HR tasks. In a small team like ours, the job is very varied. No day is the same and that makes it interesting.
What do you like most about your role?
S: The combination of tasks and the contact with people, both colleagues and customers.
What do you think are the most important qualities for someone in your position?
S: Being able to stay calm and put things into perspective. Not everything is equally important.
If you could switch jobs with a colleague for a day, who would you choose and why?
S: A technician. My technical background still fascinates me, especially when it comes to finding solutions.
What’s your biggest parking blunder? Have you ever made a hilarious parking mistake?
S: None that I can remember.
If you were a car, what kind of car would you be and why?
S: I would be a hybrid, the best of both worlds. Quiet and economical when possible, powerful when needed.
What could people wake you up for in the middle of the night—besides a parking issue?
S: Pretty much anything, I always answer the phone. But definitely if it's to go on a skiing trip.
I go several times a year: once with colleagues, once with a group of friends, and once with my children.
What gives you the most energy at work?
S: Helping people. Whether they are customers or colleagues, I like to help people if I can.
How would your colleagues describe you in three words?
S: Calm, quiet, and I’ve been told I am a good boss.
What are your professional ambitions?
S: That WPS Belgium runs smoothly, with satisfied customers and a satisfied team.
What do you think the future of parking looks like?
S: Increasingly software-driven, with less hardware. Ticketless systems and more integrations with other systems.
What parking issue would you like to solve?
S: Making equipment and software even more user-friendly, especially for people who are less familiar with parking systems.
We work a lot in the hospital sector, and visitors there are often not used to paid parking.Sometimes they don't know where to take their parking ticket or how to pay. It's a sign that the equipment is still not clear or intuitive enough.
What’s the most memorable parking experience you’ve had—either as a driver or professionally?
S: Someone trying to leave the parking through the entrance without paying, damaging everything: the column, barrier, and speed bump. And why? To save a few euros?
Do you have any advice for customers to get the most out of our products and services?
S: Talk to us early in the process. That way, we can think along and adjust unrealistic plans in time. When we first visit a customer, they often show us their plans for the parking layout or the entrance and exit.
And there are often plans where we immediately have to say: “That’s not going to work”. Then you have two types of customers: one says, okay, we’ll listen, and the other says, we won’t. If they don’t, after six months, we often have to rebuild the situation because it didn’t work.
I’m not saying we know everything, but there is a lot of knowledge and experience at WPS.
Who would you like to nominate next for ‘Meet Our Parking Experts’?
S: Our new sales colleague Quentin Martens. It’s interesting to see how he, as a newcomer, views the parking world.
