I’ve been thinking about customer support lately. Yes, the new UK Charge Point Regulations require 24/7 helplines, but in my conversations with both EV drivers and CPOs, I’m seeing a disconnect that’s affecting the entire charging experience.
Here’s what I’m hearing from EV drivers daily: They pull up to charge. The charger isn’t working. They call the support number – whether that’s your in-house team or an outsourced service. The support agent wants to help, but they can only work through their script. They can’t reach the technical team. They have no authority to tackle the underlying problem. And the most frustrating part? This same issue has been reported dozens of times before, but nothing has changed.
The impact ripples through your entire operation. Your support agents become the face of your brand, yet they’re powerless to drive real change. EV drivers tell me they lose faith in networks where they repeatedly encounter the same issues. Meanwhile, CPOs share that they’re struggling to manage the volume of support calls while maintaining their infrastructure. The result? A cycle of quick fixes or – worse – simply logging issues that never get addressed.
This brings up crucial questions that both EV drivers and CPOs need to consider. For CPOs: Are you actually reading those support reports? Are they telling you what you need to know? For EV drivers: Are you letting CPOs know when the same issues keep occurring? And for everyone involved: If call volumes are climbing, shouldn’t we be asking why?
The most successful CPOs I work with are transforming how they handle these challenges. They’re treating their support teams as valuable sources of intelligence, not just call handlers. They’re creating direct lines between support, technical teams, and management. Most importantly, they’re listening to their EV drivers and acting on their feedback.
These successful networks are asking themselves:
- How can we better capture and act on EV driver feedback?
- Do our support agents understand EV driving first hand?
- Are we tracking whether issues actually get resolved, not just how quickly we answer calls?
- When our call volumes spike, what’s the root cause?
- How are we keeping our support teams up to date with the latest regulations and technology?
Your support team’s insights, combined with direct EV driver feedback, are invaluable for continuous improvement. These are the people who understand your charging network’s real-world performance every single day. But this intelligence only has value if you act on it.
For CPOs reading this: When did you last listen to your support calls? How quickly do you act on feedback? What’s stopping insights from becoming actions?
For EV drivers: Are you seeing improvements in how networks handle your support calls? Are the same issues persisting? Your feedback helps drive change.
At Full Circle CI, we’re helping CPOs transform their customer support from a box-ticking exercise into a powerful driver of improvement. Our Charge Point Evolution framework isn’t just about meeting regulations – it’s about building the kind of support service that increases utilisation and makes EV drivers trust your network.
I’d really value a conversation about this. Whether you’re a CPO looking to improve your support operations or an EV driver with experiences to share, let’s talk about building better charging networks together.
Why not reply to this email and we can have a chat.
Thanks for reading.
Liz
P.S. I’ve got some fascinating insights from both CPOs and EV drivers about transforming support operations – let me know if you’d like to hear about them.
