9 Features Charge Point Operators Need to Scale Their EV Network
Choosing the right electric vehicle charging station software solution is crucial to growing your EV network. In addition to choosing charging stations that provide excellent charging capabilities, an electric vehicle charging station software offers operators the opportunity to scale seamlessly.
It’s important to do your research to find a software solution that will fit your needs as well as your customers’ needs. Your software provider should remain in the background, powering your efforts. It should operate seamlessly for drivers who roam between EV networks and provide a top-notch customer service experience for on-the-go drivers. Consider these features before choosing the optimal EV charging station software solution to accompany your physical stations.
1. White Label App and Management Portal
When you offer EV charging, you want to make sure you’re representing your brand in the most positive light. That means providing a branded mobile app that’s easy and intuitive for drivers to use, so drivers will associate their positive experience with your company. The EV Connect charging app earned a 4.6-star rating on both Apple’s App Store and Google Play. This rating validates the positive experiences users are having on both Android and iPhone platforms. Additionally, our white label station management portal includes access controls and pricing for customers. Technicians and operators can access station reports and gauge the station’s health, too.
2. Complete Control Over Pricing, Access and Discounts
Every company has different EV charging needs when it comes to pricing and access. The EV Connect platform lets you control who can access stations in your EV network based on their account and location. Users can gain access via their mobile device or through RFID credentials through an exclusive key fob provided with the mobile app, offering added flexibility for users.
Most importantly, our EV charging station management software provides pricing flexibility. This allows you to set pricing based on:
Kilowatt Hour (kWh)
Connected time
Charging time
Dwell time
Hourly schedules
Advanced metrics
Do you like options? We offer several including access to a complete, PCI-compliant merchant gateway for transaction management via credit cards, or you can charge users through the mobile app.
3. Control Over Loyalty Programs and Discount Programs
Whether your EV charging stations are located in multifamily properties, office buildings, municipal parking lots or in multi-use areas, you may want to reward specific customers with discounts for loyalty or residency. Enroll customers in groups for special pricing or discounts at their home location, across your entire EV network, or at select charging stations. It’s all up to you. Changing settings, assigning users to different groups or changing the pricing or discounts, as needed, can all be easily done.
4. An Easy-to-Use Customer Service Portal
For maximum profitability, it’s crucial for your service team to have remote station access. This keeps your EV charging stations running and available to your customers with minimum downtime. Resolve charging issues remotely without visiting the charging station.
If an issue needs to be escalated to a network operator, you can create a service ticket through Zendesk to track the issue, see the steps taken for resolution and to see how quickly it was resolved. Fast, reliable support and service is a key to profitability. Scalability stems from being able to measure and improve upon operations. Being able to track support and service can help you improve as you scale your EV network.
5. Load Management Tools for Greater Efficiency and Cost Savings
Return-on-investment matters when you install EV charging stations at your business. One way to improve your ROI is by managing your energy load efficiently. Our EV charging station software makes it easy with load management tools that meet Open Automated Demand Response Standards (also called OpenADR) and provides:
Load balancing
Load shift
Load shed
These features increase efficiency and avoid taxing the electric grid during peak use hours to maximize your ROI and enhance the sustainability of your EV network. You can balance or shift loads across individual stations or across your entire network, as needed.
6. Reporting Features
Robust reporting capabilities also help you maintain the efficiency and ROI of your EV charging network. Our reporting suite includes data on:
Sessions
Stations
Transactions
Intervals
Sustainability
Export the data into a raw comma separated values (also known as a CSV) file for further analysis outside the software or to share in financial or productivity reports. You can’t improve what you don’t measure. So, you want to be sure your EV charging software provides the data you need to scale your EV network.
7. Software Compatibility
As the number of EVs on the road continues to grow, drivers want a seamless experience — even as they use various EV networks. While brand loyalty to your EV network is desirable, it may not be practical immediately if you don’t have charging stations in every city, state or region.
Our EV charging station software follows Open Charge Point Interface standards which means drivers can embrace your stations, as well as others. OCPI standards are a key to encouraging EV drivers to use their vehicles for long-distance road trips and feel confident they will be able to find compatible EV stations along the way. It may also help encourage adoption of EVs as EV charging stations will slowly become as common as gas stations. Drivers won’t need to worry about pre-mapping their route to ensure the availability of EV chargers within a specific network.
8. Software Training
With all these features, network operators will require at least some training to make the most of our EV charging station software. Fortunately, we provide white-glove, personalized onboarding and in-depth training to ensure you get the most out of our solution.
9. Security
Hand-in-hand with training, network security is important for peace-of-mind. Our software adheres to top-level security policies to protect your EV network from not just security breaches and unauthorized access, but from interference, intrusion, leakage or theft of data — both yours and your customers.
EV Connect delivers all these solutions through our EV charging station software to help you provide the most versatile and convenient charging experience for your customers. Contact us today so we can show you how our innovative software solutions can benefit your charging stations.
Dawn Allcot is a full-time freelance writer and content marketing specialist who has written about sustainability and solar for 20-plus years. She frequently covers Tesla and Elon Musk for GoBankingRates and is the owner and founder of GeekTravelGuide.net.