Add EV Chargers to Your Business Site To Attract and Retain Customers and Employees
As the U.S. moves toward a more prolific offering of electric vehicles, creating the infrastructure to support them can be a booming business opportunity for your organization. Charging stations can provide three main value-adds for your customers, employees, and business partners.
1. Provide sustainable business amenities.
As an organization, you can provide a sustainable amenity that directly benefits your customers and theirs. Adding EV charging stations is an opportunity to help the environment and provide charging options to further the global green initiative. Of course, EV chargers are an attractive amenity and will increasingly become an expectation, not just a competitive advantage. Think Wi-Fi, pet-friendly hotels, or benefits key to employee retention such as flexible remote-working options. Alongside amenities, consumers and employees alike are demanding corporate social responsibility. CRS is more than just donating money to worthy causes. It’s about making a commitment to the community and taking action to improve the world we live in. Electric vehicles can reduce the emissions that contribute to climate change, improve public health, and reduce ecological damage. That’s better than just writing a check.
2. Become a destination
Because the EV infrastructure is not on par with that of gas vehicles, EV drivers must plan for charges, and they will choose destinations with charger availability and compatibility in mind. Using mobile apps and in-vehicle navigation, EV drivers will choose where to stop and charge based on the businesses and amenities nearby. If you don’t offer EV charging at your site, your existing and potential customers may choose a competing company down the street instead. And when you provide a reliable and safe charging experience in combination with various amenities, EV drivers will become increasingly loyal to your business.
3. Help pass the dwell time.
From a 30-minute supercharge to 24 hours on a trickle charge, there is precious dwell time between plugging in and getting EVs back on the road. Shopping centers, cinemas, hotels, restaurants, workplaces, and schools are ideal for charger installations because it allows a captive audience (EV drivers) to multitask during the charge time. Charge and shop, dine, work, or learn. The point is, wherever life is happening, EV charging can happen there too. So, as a business owner, your parking spaces can do double duty and draw visitors because EV parking is EV charging.
Gas car drivers tend to drive until tanks are near empty and refuel. EV drivers must make more calculated decisions to maintain charge levels. Most EV drivers maintain a charge level of 50 to 80% capacity for daily use while replenishing as needed, much like smartphone users.
For the foreseeable future, EV drivers will be higher-income, brand savvy, highly desirable customers likely to adopt loyalty programs. Forward-thinking businesses, academic institutions, and employers will also help to enable the shift to electric transportation to boost EV adoption by providing users with a place to refuel reliably when they’re away from home. Big picture, even beyond customer or employee satisfaction: You are helping to enable more sustainable transportation, which goes a long way in business today. If you’d like to explore more about EV charging opportunities, please contact a Terra Energy Services representative today.