Many years ago when I first started in service and maintenance and even before I started my involvement with business improvement work, I found myself leading a service team responsible for maintaining parking equipment across the South East. The situation we walked into was anything but ideal. Our equipment had a terrible reputation, customers thought it was unreliable, difficult to use, and, frankly, not worth their time. But here’s the thing: the equipment itself wasn’t the problem.
The real issue lay in how it had been supported, or rather, how it hadn’t. The previous service team were based in Somerset and hadn’t delivered the kind of service customers needed to trust the product. They weren’t responsive, they didn’t fix problems at their root cause, and as a result, frustration had built up over time.
So, when we took over, we didn’t just inherit the machines; we inherited the complaints, the scepticism, and the damage to the brand’s reputation.
Does this sound familiar anyone?
Trust Isn’t Built on Promises, It’s Earned
There were no quick fixes. We couldn’t just slap a new logo on the service van and expect customers to change their minds overnight. We had to prove, day in and day out, that we would bend over backwards for them. That when something went wrong, we’d be there. That we weren’t just looking to clear a service ticket; we were committed to making their lives easier.
Our approach to rebuilding trust was simple, but powerful:
- Solving problems over the phone when possible – Instead of defaulting to an engineer visit, we trained our team to diagnose and resolve minor issues remotely. It saved customers time and showed them we genuinely cared.
- Getting engineers on-site quickly for genuine faults – Response times mattered. When customers saw that we took their issues seriously, they started seeing us differently.
- Fixing root causes, not just symptoms – We didn’t just patch things up; we made sure the same problems wouldn’t keep cropping up. Over time, that consistency made all the difference.
The EV Charging Parallel
Fast forward to today, and I see the same trust gap in the EV charging industry. Many charge point operators (CPOs) are struggling with a reputation problem, not necessarily always because their hardware is flawed, but because the customer experience around it has been neglected.
When drivers encounter faulty charge points, inconsistent support, or unclear pricing, they don’t just shrug it off. They share their frustration, on social media, in reviews, and with other EV owners. The damage compounds quickly, and before long, a network finds itself labelled as unreliable, even if 90% of its chargers work just fine.
The lesson from my time in parking equipment services still holds:
Trust isn’t built through marketing or promises. It’s built through consistent service delivery and genuine care for the customer experience.
- When a charge point works reliably, trust grows.
- When support is responsive and knowledgeable, trust strengthens.
- When problems don’t just get patched but permanently solved, trust solidifies.
And what follows? Higher utilisation, better customer retention, and ultimately, greater business success.
At Full Circle CI, we help CPOs take this approach to continuous improvement, because in EV charging, just like in parking, trust isn’t given. It’s earned.
