How I directed the design of a standardised charging station experience, led the design team to achieve impact in the organisation, resulting in an increase of EV charging success rates and revenue per charging bay.
Scope
Country
Global (UK, Germany, Netherlands, China)
Year
2022-2023
Role
Global Head of Design
Surfing the customer adoption wave
EV charging is currently in the 'early adopter' stage in most countries, with rapid movement toward the Early Majority phase.
In 2022, one of the primary obstacles to EV adoption remained range anxiety. According to our initial primary research, over half of the respondents reported experiencing regular range anxiety.
This anxiety primarily stemmed from the availability of charging infrastructure and the reliability of charge points.
Despite reliability issues being addressed in the systems and infrastructure, our proprietary Mystery Motorist program revealed that a number of customers couldn’t successfully charge their car, at a proportion higher than expected. Furthermore, our EV Safaris further evidenced that the EV charging mission is stressful due to multiple factors.
Framing the customer problem
Our primary research recorded that approximately half of new EV drivers did not successfully charge their vehicles the first time. Furthermore, the user experience varied across each charger in the bp pulse portfolio, resulting in increased customer friction. Consequently, we observed negative sentiment, unnecessary customer care calls, and churn.
Customer interviews, Charge experience research synthesis
Satisfaction metrics alone were not enough to drive a network performance. A standardised, user-friendly charging experience would foster predictable interactions, increase adoption and ultimately build trust in the brand.
Defining the business opportunity
Using various suppliers for our chargers made it harder to control the implementation of business and regulatory requirements, such as price display. Additionally, the user experience needed to be optimised for our target audience.
I asked my team to conduct an evaluation of current hardware behaviours and interactions to evaluate standardisation opportunities.
High-level screen interaction flows of different chargers
We knew that if we were to adopt standardised component definitions, systems behaviour and interactions, this would mitigate regulatory risks, decrease costs, and streamline efforts required to support ongoing hardware maintenance and development.
