As the EV charging stations market is heating up – the number of electric cars on the world’s roads by the end of 2021 was about 16.5 million, triple the amount in 2018 – EV drivers want an enhanced EV charging experience.
“I want the chargers to work every time.”
“I want to control my EV charging experience.”
“I want a quick and easy payment process.”
“I want to be able to give feedback to my eMobility service provider”
“I want to find charging stations’ locations anywhere I go.”
Here’s a list of steps EV charging providers need to take, to meet EV drivers evolving needs:
Reliability – Ensure EV Charger Stability and Availability
Maintaining user satisfaction is a challenge, especially in the face of multiple technical issues, complex business processes, and diverse EV charging networks and devices. Customers complain about lack of charging stations as well as inaccessibility and unreliability of existing ones.
Charge point operators: ensure charger availability and stability and minimize downtime by adopting technologies that enable:
- 24/7 issue-detection, prioritization, and automated self-healing algorithms to remotely address operational problems and minimize impact on drivers
- Integrated CRM with one-click-away transmission of relevant details, such as charger/driver data, problem history, site information, etc. for quick and efficient problem solving
- Guided problem resolution through a library of common charger issues and proven solutions to reduce human error and time to resolution
- Advanced algorithms and data analytics that help predict cost-related driver behaviors to reduce overall energy requirements
- Efficient monitoring of energy consumption to provide optimal demand response and ensure drivers can charge their EVs when they need it
Simplicity – Provide EV Driver Self-service Tools
Make customers’ lives easier by offering intelligent, all-in-one self-service tools to help them maintain control over their EV charging experience. Adopt a management software that provides:
- Real-time charger location and availability so drivers can check if the charging stations near them are working properly; then, they can reserve ahead, navigate to the nearest available charger, pay, or report an issue
- Seamless and intuitive user interface to manage driver profile, notifications, payment methods, account members, and vehicles to optimize the driver experience
- A flexible, customizable branded application to help strengthen customer relationships with eMobility providers
- Easy access to personal, real-time insights about charging history, transactions, account information, and more to enhance driver visibility
Easy EV Billing – Streamline the Process
Optimize billing operations by ensuring billing accuracy and billing process credibility. eMobility providers should look for a management software with tools to:
- Process incoming data from the chargers to ensure efficient and error-free billing cycles and automatically produce and send out statements
- Provide billing analytics
- Issue easy-to-understand bills, including details of charging sessions, transactions, price plan, taxes, etc.
- Offer real-time billing without the need to wait for the next billing cycle
- Let customers pay with the plan that best fit their needs: pre-paid, post-paid, ad hoc, group plans based on driver/station, as well as multiple plans with dynamic and static cost factoring
- Offer discounts/refunds to unsatisfied customers
EV Driver Engagement – Enable the “Voice of the Customer”
Your customers’ voice is critical to enhancing their experience and ultimately your bottom line. Here, eMobility service providers can learn from other industries about how using customer insights and feedback – what they think, need, and want – can help drive future strategies, business models, and services offered.
To benefit from the voice of the customer:
- Ensure that you capture customer feedback, including their experiences and expectations of your products and services
- Offer a “ratings” functionality about the charging experience and/or charging site safety
- Collect voice of the customer data with surveys, social listening, customer interviews, focus groups, live chat, website behavior, online customer reviews, dedicated feedback forms, etc.
- Track customer experience KPIs
eRoaming – Make it Easy to Charge Across Borders
Roaming is key to enabling interconnected national and international EV charging networks, creating more linked charging networks, and ensuring that drivers enjoy seamless and reliable charging within and across countries.
Make this a reality for your EV customers by offering roaming capabilities that:
- Support both the European model (integration with established roaming platforms including Hubject, GIREVE, e-clearing.net) and the U.S. model (providing network-to-network and OCPI roaming capabilities of charging networks)
- Ensure that EV drivers can access an unlimited number of chargers, so they can seamlessly charge wherever they are regardless of the operator
- Allow EV charging networks to interact with other networks and enable drivers to use in-network roaming as well
- Handle authorization, token synchronization, and transaction exchange, and offer smart charging extensions and other advanced features
EV charging point operators and eMobility service providers : You are the vanguard of the EV revolution. Selling more electric vehicles depends on you turning EV charging into a delightful user experience.
