I downloaded the admyt app a week ago and I can already say it’s changed my life for the better. As the name suggests (a play on the word “admit”), admyt gives a person ticketless entry into certain shopping centres and retail parks just to name a few.
I’m quite late to jump on this technology seeing that they launched in 2015, however, there couldn’t be a more ideal time for me to have such an app.
I live in the heart of Sandton so my “corner grocery store” is literally Sandton City Mall. I’m in and out of there a few times a week. I know exactly where I’m going, what I want and where to park, and I would be out of the mall within 15 – 20 minutes and not have to pay a parking fee.
Since Sandton City Mall scrapped their free parking grace period, I’ve had the painful experience of enduring the parking ticketing system a couple of times a week, more often than not, spending more time trying to pay for my ticket than the actual time I spent at the mall.
If their ticket pay station wasn’t out of service then the card service was offline, then I’d be advised to go to an ATM to draw cash or go to their ticket office on a completely different floor. Both of which I find totally unacceptable. Of late, they now offer the option to wait for someone with a speed point to come, or I’d have to endure long queues at a pay station that actually worked.
I’ve been frustrated for months now and every time I saw the admyt branding on the pay stations I kept thinking to myself that I need to download the app. Then I would think about the registration process and all the info I would need to fill out, and I would tell myself I will download it at home, and of course I kept forgetting.
Fast track to last Thursday when I had to make a quick stop at the mall. As I was about to drive in, I decided enough was enough. I made a quick detour and parked on the side of the road, downloaded the app and registered my details in under 3 minutes (would have been faster if I had my bank card ready and didn’t have to dig through my bag) and within 1 minute of having registered, drove into the mall and the boom gate just opened and I swear I could hear heavenly bells in my ears!
This happened around 7pm. I half didn’t expect that I would be given immediate access. I was highly impressed that the registration process was so seamless and that my car details were loaded to their system so quickly that the mall’s cameras were able to pick up my car registration details in under 60 seconds of registering and give me access.
When I got home and was pondering a bit more as to whether or not that process happened as quickly as I thought, I was scrolling through my emails and I saw that I received a registration confirmation email at 7:03pm and an entry confirmation email into Sandton City Mall at 7:04pm.
Over the past 7 days I’ve been to the mall 4 times and each experience has been bliss. I experienced a bit of a glitch trying to leave the mall on Monday. It appeared that the camera at one of the exit booms wasn’t able to read my vehicle. Common sense told me to just drive to another exit and I was let out swiftly. I lately realised that I received an email from admyt in real time when I had issues as the first exit. The email acknowledged that the gate failed to open when I was trying to leave and advised me to press the intercom button and that the operate would open for me.
Despite the glitch, or rather because of the glitch and how admyt was able to respond to it immediately, I give this app a well deserved 5 star rating.
For everyone on the go, especially those that don’t carry cash on them, I highly recommend that you register with admyt today. The service is linked to your car not your phone, so whether or not you have your phone on you or if your battery has died, you will still gain entry into and out of any admyt registered shopping centres and retail parks.
