When Joseph and Bob Switzer started playing around with fluorescent chemicals for paints and fabrics, I wonder if they knew of the magical and pervasive powers the hallowed hi-vis jacket would have on society. And Viggo Venn.
This egalitarian and always oversized garment makes anybody look more official and adorns every public event from car boot sales to Eras tours. Yet it’s not just the gear we take for granted. Think of the people who wear it, including GRIDSERVE’s EV charging support squad, otherwise known as ‘bay marshals’ if your name is Troy Hawke.
In busy periods during summer, half-term and the wintry depths of the festive season, GRIDSERVE’s first (and very friendly) line of defence are stationed across our most popular EV charging sites including Rugby, Exeter and Cherwell Valley to help provide drivers with the quickest and most positive charging experience.
Some of the support squad are from the customer service team, but you’ll frequently find volunteers from other areas of the business. Volunteers like origination associate, Dominic Sardo, who joins us on a frosty morning at Cherwell Valley Services.
In his day job, Dom finds new land across the UK to develop into hybrid solar farms. Our EV chargers run on sun, but as the GRIDSERVE Electric Highway continues to grow, so too does the need for more homegrown energy generation. So you can appreciate that Dom is a very busy guy, and yet here he is, finding the time to put on his puffer jacket and talk charging curves to anybody willing to listen. Is this pure altruism or is there more to it?
“From an employee perspective, it’s great to see what the lived experience of our customers is like today,” he tells me. “If we can better understand these factors, we can help this influence the design of our future Electric Super Hubs. We never want to stand still.”
He’s right about that. Less than a year ago, Cherwell Valley Services featured two Medium Power units. Today, that charging provision has expanded to include a further six High Power, 350kW-capable chargers with ‘plug in and pay’ simplicity, CCS, CHAdeMO and AC connectors, plus a pair of super-wide accessible bays. And there is much more to come.
The help Dom seems to repeatedly offer throughout the morning can be as simple as stopping a charging session (by tapping your card against the payment terminal) or helping drivers better understand the charging capabilities of their own car. Whatever the scenario, he delivers a response that is clear, eloquent and gratefully received.
“We find that many customers who come to charge with GRIDSERVE are doing so for the very first time, and it can be daunting if they haven’t been told what to do,” he explains. “Some vehicles have higher power charging capabilities than others, but that information may not have been passed on to the consumer. Fortunately, our sites feature AC and DC charging, plus Medium Power and High Power units, so we’re able to deliver the best charging experience for the vast majority of electric vehicle drivers.”
With everything seemingly under control, we head north to Moto Rugby and meet Alex Roberts, Head of EV Experience. Alex is another friendly charging attendant for the day, full of robust optimism. But these 11 High Power charging bays are in even higher demand and Alex is flying solo. Hi-vis jacket on, I decide to do my finest impression of a traffic controller on the Piazza Venezia.
Together, Alex and I quickly begin to optimise the charging sessions. I don’t mean that we complete a course in Lean Six Sigma, just that we are able to orchestrate, appease and corral the busy flow of electric vehicles. It’s fun and rewarding to help drivers steer into our charging bays and receive a thankful wave. Only occasionally am I asked if I’m doing this as community service to avoid jail.
And how has the day gone for Alex? “Overall, it’s been really positive. We have found that some customers will wait until they’re beyond 100% (fully charged) to leave and that can cause some frustration in busier times. What we would love to develop is some way of notifying our customers before their vehicle is 100%, so that they can start to make their way back to the vehicle. This would be especially useful for sites like Moto Rugby, where the charging location is quite a walk away from the main entrance. We’re also hearing constantly about a need for more chargers and canopies, so we’re already working with the landowners on making this a possibility.”
We may not all possess the same lived experience with our EV chargers, but we all have the capacity to listen, learn and ask ourselves what we can do to improve things. From my time at both Electric Super Hubs today, it’s clear that the folks at GRIDSERVE really care about creating an EV charging infrastructure that works for everyone, everywhere.
