6 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Charging Partner for Your EV Charging Stations
So you’ve decided to offer your tenants, employees or customers EV charging stations in your parking lot. Now it’s time to figure out what exactly you need in an electric charging station, as well as how you can be sure you’re getting the best pricing and service you expect and deserve. Consider the following questions to help you find a management company you can rely on — from the planning process to monitoring, service and support stages.
1. How Does Your EV Charging Partner Handle Customer Support?
Some commercial EV charging providers believe that automated service and support is a reliable option. But if your EV charging stations go down or you have a customer service question, you may prefer the caring support of a human being.
At EV Connect, real humans are available to provide quick answers to all your questions and get you back up and running quickly if a station goes down. We provide 24/7 support for both you, your operations and facility managers, and for the EV drivers who use your stations. In the words of an EV Connect client: “Love that you get a real human, and not an automated service, everyone I've talked to has been great, and worked hard to solve the issues, my hat off to the EV Connect team!”
2. Will Your EV Charging Partner Walk You Through the Entire Process?
There’s a lot to consider when you make the jump to support EV drivers with charging stations in your parking lot, and some of it can be confusing. To facilitate an easy and profitable endeavor, find an EV charging partner who will act as a consultant from start to finish and:
Help you assess your EV charging needs
Determine the most appropriate hardware
Help you apply for incentives
Oversee the installation and deployment of EV charging stations on your property
Manage your network for an optimal experience
3. Following Initial Installation, What Management Tools Do They Provide?
There’s more to providing EV charging stations than just installing the hardware and deploying the software network. A company’s software affects how much control you have over your charging network. Look for an EV charging partner with robust, reliable software that enables you to:
Control access to your chargers
Set pricing
Review usage and performance data in real-time
Some companies only provide monthly reports and analytics. EV Connect’s software solutions make it easier for you to monitor station usage, uptime and profitability in real time, enabling you to make adjustments quickly and scale as needed.
4. Is the Software Compatible With Multiple Types of Hardware?
Finding the right charging stations is important, but even more crucial is the management platform. Since different locations may have different needs for EV charging stations, property owners may want to install different hardware at various stages and various locations based on needs and capabilities. Being able to manage all your charging stations from one software solution can save you time and money.
Offering a consistent software experience across all your properties makes training easier for your personnel. It also saves you time when it comes to tracking usage, availability and uptime across locations. With one intuitive platform, you can see when it’s time to scale your charging stations, add new locations or customize your charging solutions for a best-in-class driver experience.
EV Connect offers multiple hardware-agnostic software packages to meet your needs. Ask us about them here!
5. Is the App Intuitive?
It’s important that the management software for your charging stations is intuitive, customizable and easy to use. But you also want to deliver a seamless experience to your customers, giving them easy access to your network of chargers and enabling them to pay for EV charging quickly online.
Like our software solutions, the EV Connect app is intuitive to use.
The app offers a search function for EV charging stations; drivers can easily find a charger in their vicinity, start the session by scanning a QR code or entering the station ID in the app and receive a mobile or email notification when their EV is charged.
6. Is Your EV Charging Partner Reputable?
Downtime for your electric car charging stations could mean unhappy customers or tenants, missed delivery deadlines and lost revenue. You want to find a charging partner with a solid reputation for customer service and support, and stellar customer testimonials.
EV Connect has worked with prestigious companies ranging from Dell and Hilton to Verizon to meet their EV charging needs. If you are looking for turnkey hardware and software solutions for EV charging stations across the U.S., connect with us to learn more now.