Succesful Buyer Service Is Important To EV Charging Networks

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In a latest article, I wrote about issues I had charging a Kia EV9 I’m reviewing. The automobile itself has been nice, however I wasn’t capable of cost at two Francis Vitality stations in New Mexico, even after calling buyer help. This, in flip, led to me needing to cost at Degree 2 a couple of miles down the street after which drive tremendous gradual to make it dwelling on minimal battery. Altogether, that malfunction wasted about 4 hours of my life and saved me from going to mattress till 4 AM.

Since writing about that, I obtained a message from Francis notifying me that there was an issue with my account. Whereas I had $20 in credit score that will have been greater than sufficient for the quick charging session I needed to do, my card was expired, so their software program wouldn’t let me cost. After I informed them that I needed telephone help had been capable of let me know what the issue was, the rep obtained defensive, telling me that they’d despatched a number of e-mails letting me know concerning the expired card.

Regardless of the cause for the lack to cost was, there’s one large query the tech help individual didn’t wish to reply: why am I discovering out what the issue was two or three days later as an alternative of after I known as them from the charging station?

I do know from my experiences calling Electrify America, EVgo, and even Blink that it’s doable for customer support representatives (in any respect hours) to have the ability to do issues like reset stations, verify on error codes, and assist you to get via billing points. However, Francis Vitality’s telephone help is dealt with by a 3rd celebration firm, and people representatives can solely assist you to begin a charging session. They’ll’t do any of the opposite issues reps for these different networks can do for you.

If I had known as that night time and had been informed what the issue was, I might have simply fastened it and drove dwelling. As a substitute, I discover out two days later why I wasn’t capable of cost, lengthy after that info would have been helpful.

Why I’m Sharing This Story

Whereas large names like Tesla, Electrify America, EVgo, and ChargePoint get plenty of consideration, these firms don’t run the entire charging stations on the market. Increasingly, I’m seeing smaller regional and even native charging firms popping up on Plugshare. It appears unlikely that these smaller charging suppliers can afford to pay for a giant name heart, so lots of them are going to make use of third-party help and software program to assist them handle the stations. The economics of scale will be taken benefit of when these firms share these sources.

However, the hazard to utilizing third-party help is that they gained’t be as useful as they need to be. If the reps can’t see the explanations for charging errors, reboot malfunctioning stations, or assist you to repair account and billing points, many individuals aren’t going to have the ability to get a cost once they in any other case very simply might have.

The actual fact is that we want all of those smaller charging firms to succeed. The massive names can’t deal with all of it. There is just too a lot want for EV charging within the coming years for us to lose any firm with out setting EV adoption again. So, we have to assist these firms see what the problems are and repair them.

Featured picture by Francis Vitality.