September 12, 2024

Commercial EV Charging Station Maintenance

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6 Min. Read

As a commercial property owner, offering exceptional experiences and amenities is a great way to locally distinguish your business and attract more customers. However, a crucial aspect of maintaining your status relies on continuing the upkeep of your facility and ensuring your customer expectations are met.

The world is rapidly evolving with the emergence of new technology, and one way your business can now set itself apart as a local leader is through embracing electrification and sustainability. While offering commercial EV charging stations will generate additional traffic and a new stream of revenue from EV drivers, these charging stations can also help to promote EV adoption and workplace satisfaction among employees, who will appreciate a safe and convenient place to charge while they’re at work.

In order to support these goals for your business and continue to build a positive reputation, it is critical to ensure your commercial EV charging stations are reliable through regular maintenance as improperly installed or poorly maintained charging stations will result in a negative experience and damage to your company image.

In this article, we’ll discuss why maintenance is a crucial component of commercial electrification and how you can ensure your chargers continue to optimize your business operations.

Charger Maintenance Plans Help Meet Growing Customer Expectations

With more than half of EV charging problems coming from connectivity errors, preventing these issues is especially vital considering EV charging infrastructure is predicted to grow tenfold by 2030, with workplace EV charging as a priority.

Providing EV charging for customers not only enhances your business model but also transforms your location into a go-to destination for drivers.

As with any other service, customers expect convenience and EV charger availability. Offline or damaged chargers or unkept charging areas will result in dissatisfied EV drivers, reputational damage, and loss of loyalty and revenues as customers seek another shopping location with reliable EV charging.

In addition to turning away potential customers, if you rely on your commercial EV infrastructure to power your company’s electric fleet, charger downtime can hinder your operations, result in an additional profit loss, and become a source of anxiety for your drivers—resulting in decreased job satisfaction and higher turn-over rates.

While this might seem like installing EV chargers can result in too many issues, having a commercial EV charger maintenance plan will easily help you avoid this by preventing minor issues before they become major problems.

A qualified electrician should inspect your commercial EV chargers regularly, prevent issues before they arise, and respond quickly in case of downtime, so having a maintenance plan in place will ensure you can avoid delays in receiving service when issues arise—especially as an electrician workforce shortage continues to create challenges in the availability of qualified EV charger installers.

Regulatory Compliance May Demand Commercial Charger Maintenance

While maintenance is a significant aspect of driving satisfaction and revenue from EV charging stations in the long-term, having properly installed EV chargers will also play a key role in the success of your electrification projects.

Investing in commercial EV charging infrastructure involves navigating a growing set of regulatory requirements, which a licensed electrician familiar with the requirements in your area will be more familiar with and easily able to meet. While these regulations can differ by location and industry, implementing a proactive maintenance plan once your charging stations are correctly installed to code will not only ensure compliance but can also help you avoid expensive repairs and keep your operations running smoothly.

For instance, California EV charging laws require station developers to create a plan for long-term operations and a strategy for dealing with vandalism in the case of public or shared stations.

It’s also important to stay compliant with national regulations, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which ensures that the area around stations is free of obstructions and that cables can coil properly.

For connected stations that collect payments, regular maintenance should include upgrading the firmware to ensure the EV charger complies with data protection and payment processing rules.

The National Electric Code (NEC) and local building codes also have EV charging standards for proper wiring and installation and having an electrician check electrical connections regularly will keep your commercial EV chargers compliant with these requirements and can prevent costly repairs as the equipment ages and experiences wear and tear from use.

Protecting Business Reputation and Image

Sustainable and eco-friendly practices are becoming more and more important to customers, with 9.7% of consumers willing to spend more if a product is sustainably sourced. You can effectively connect with these customers while also supporting organizational ESG goals by installing reliable commercial EV chargers.

Don’t let this initiative backfire with poor EV charger maintenance. Consumers tend to form opinions quickly, and just one negative experience can leave a lasting impact on their perception of your brand, potentially harming your business’s reputation.

To mitigate this risk, it is essential to proactively maintain your EV charging infrastructure by ensuring that your charging stations are reliable, well-maintained, and quickly repaired as needed—creating a positive experience that reinforces customer trust and loyalty.

The Hidden Cost of Hiring an Unqualified Electrician

As a commercial building owner, your business is built with reputation and a resulting trust in the quality you provide which is why using a qualified electrician to install and maintain your EV charging stations is a must. Hiring an unlicensed or unqualified electrician is a mistake that can lead to costly repairs and higher EV charger maintenance costs, but can also cause additional harm to your reputation as customers who experience the repercussions of your cutting costs may begin to associate this trait with your business and look for other areas to critique.

But beyond the cost to your reputation, an improperly installed charging station can lead to property damages, injuries, and more, and you may be held liable for any damages resulting from an improper installation as a result of hiring unqualified labor.

Additionally, your business will likely incur ongoing costs linked to downtime, frequent repairs, and possible compliance problems that must be corrected at your expense before your commercial EV chargers can operate.

Investing in a trustworthy partner is invaluable, as it can lead to significant savings in both time and money over the long term, as well as ensuring your reputation remains intact. By hiring a reliable contractor, you ensure that your operations run smoothly and efficiently—ultimately providing you with peace of mind and a solid return on your investment.

Maintenance Keeps Your Commercial EV Charging Station Up and Running

Failing to develop a commercial EV charging station maintenance plan can result in a poor user experience, hurt your brand reputation, and cause a loss of charging station revenue.

The best way to mitigate these risks is to partner with a qualified electrical contractor who regularly inspects your EVSE and performs preventive maintenance and repairs.

Qmerit is Your Commercial EV Charging Station Maintenance Partner

As the largest and most trusted electrification leader in North America, Qmerit’s network of certified electricians has installed over 450,000 EV charging stations in homes and businesses across the U.S. and Canada and is more recommended than any other EV charger installer or electrification service provider.

We’ve earned our reputation as the most experienced and highest-quality electrification service and EV charger installation network and ensure that every member of our network is thoroughly vetted, licensed, insured, and trained in the proper installation and upkeep of these technologies.

Our experience and commitment to your business can make your electrification project easy with end-to-end care and turnkey services and solutions designed to meet the unique needs of your business, and with EVSE maintenance plans to keep your charging infrastructure in optimal shape once your charging stations are in place, working with Qmerit means Electrification Made Easy™.

Find out how commercial EV charging can help build your business for the future. Contact Qmerit today to learn how we can support your electrification project.

Author: Tom Bowen

Tom Bowen

President, Qmerit Solutions and Commercial Electrification