Episode 125: Liz Allan and Marie-France van Heel - Putting Drivers First with Customer-Centric EV Charging

Episode 125: Liz Allan and Marie-France van Heel - Putting Drivers First with Customer-Centric EV Charging.

Liz Allan speaks with Marie-France van Heel, Chief Customer Officer at Be.EV. With a career that spans broadcasting, marketing, and green infrastructure, Marie-France shares her journey into EV charging and her mission to enhance the customer experience. They discuss the importance of community-led strategies, the challenges of simplifying public charging for drivers, and how BEV is building trust and loyalty by putting the customer first.

Marie-France van Heel Bio
Marie-France has a background in broadcasting at MTV, Sky, and Disney and transitioned into green infrastructure, inspired by her passion for sustainable transportation and the electrification of travel. At BEV, she focuses on creating a seamless and intuitive charging experience while fostering a sense of community among EV drivers. Her commitment to listening to customer feedback and designing solutions around their needs has positioned BEV as a leading advocate for user-friendly and accessible charging infrastructure.

Marie France Links
Website: https://be-ev.co.uk
Twitter https://x.com/BeEV_Charging
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfvanheel

Quote of the Day:
"The best customer experience is one that’s so seamless, you don’t even notice it. You simply tap, charge, and go with a smile." – Marie-France van Heel

Episode Keywords
EV charging, Be.EV, seamless charging, EV accessibility, Octopus Energy partnership, EV adoption, electric vehicles, green infrastructure, customer experience in EV, employee-owned business, UK charge point operators

Episode Hashtags
#EVCharging #CustomerCentricEV #SeamlessCharging #GreenInfrastructure #SustainableTravel #EVAccessibility #EVAdoption 

Transcript

Liz Allan [00:00:01]:
Okay. On today's episode, I've got Marie France Van Heel. She is the cost chief customer officer at BEV. Thank you ever so much for joining me, Marie France. It's Lovely and I just I'm sorry if you're if you're not watching this but she's got a really quite cool background with a big lightning bolt and a lovely red background. So, yeah, jump onto YouTube if you do want to see that. But thank you. Wonderful.

Liz Allan [00:00:27]:
Wonderful to to kinda meet you. So tell me a little bit about you. So you've been you've worked for the company for a little while now, haven't you, for a a couple of years now? And but you've worked in in marketing for for many years from, you know, from what I was actually when I was doing some research. What's your kind of background? You have a marketing background, but what made you get to where you are now? What was your journey to get to Be.EV? And what inspired you actually to be involved with them?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:01:00]:
Yeah. Okay. Let's make sure this is not a completely tedious review of my industry, which I heard people do, and I'm like, no. 

Liz Allan [00:01:08]:
Don't worry.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:01:09]:
I started in broadcasting. Mhmm. So I went to MTV and at Sky, and Disney. So very, very different sector.

Liz Allan [00:01:18]:
Yeah.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:01:19]:
Fast forward to about 2,001, I relocated from London to the north with my husband's job. So I started to look to pivot into different areas, you know, based on the industries around the north. And I ended up moving more agency side.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:01:34]:
Right. It was part of my last agency where I started doing a lot of work with Amy, the infrastructure giant.

Liz Allan [00:01:39]:
Yes.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:01:40]:
That's how I met many of the Be.EV team because Be.EV was initially a contract between AAMI and TFGM, transport Right. So that's how I met the team, and I worked with BEE as a consultant for some time. I am really keen and interested in the kind of green economy, green transportation, and electrification, and I love the whole area. So when Asif and when our chair, who's a chap called Will, who's the chief executive of Caffeineiro, invited me to join, I thought, yep, it seems like a good time to pivot my career and and and go the whole hog. So I joined formally, sort of, in the summer of last year. That was kind of how I ended up here. They did a lot of persuasion to get me out of my London agency mindset. 

Marie-France Van Heel [00:02:25]:
Yeah. Enjoying it.

Liz Allan [00:02:27]:
So is it that, as you say, it's a very different sector from what you've been in before? What kind of stood out as the, like I say, major differences, but what has been the biggest difference that you've kind of gone, oh, okay? I wasn't expecting that since you joined.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:02:48]:
So I did quite a lot of work with other clients and other companies and organizations in the kind of green industry and the sustainability kind of environmentalism space. I did a lot of work with the Natural History Museum and other green energy companies, which was fun. But again, as a consultant and on the agency consultancy side, I think nobody prepares you for what it's like to get back into the throng of a start-up scale-up. Yeah. It's the mentality, the speed, the workload, and the emotional commitment that you give. And this is an employee-owned business, so we all have a huge desire to make this company successful. But that kind of level of workload and, you know, activity and change and kind of organized chaos was to get was something I had to get used to again. But, yeah, I'm I am enjoying it.

Liz Allan [00:03:44]:
Brilliant. So you're saying it's employee-owned. Do you want to expand on that and tell everybody what that means?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:03:53]:
Yeah. So, in late October 2022, we got quite a considerable investment, chunk from Octopus Energy. And so they are an equity kind of shareholder. They are a majority shareholder, but the rest of the business is owned by the founders and employees. So, we have an LTP scheme, which most people are familiar with. But Asif and Adrian, our founders, were committed to making sure everybody got a piece, a piece of the business, a piece of the action. And, you know, that's been great to see them follow that through. So I am now a shareholder in the business, as are quite a few members of my team, which is just brilliant.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:04:32]:
It gives you a new sense of energy and commitment behind the calls. It really does.

Liz Allan [00:04:37]:
I was just about to ask you, what difference does that make with regards to how your approach is as a business?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:04:47]:
As I say to me, it's more of a cultural impact.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:04:51]:
It's a different level of emotional engagement and emotional

Marie-France Van Heel [00:04:53]:
Commitment to the business. Because of the work you're doing, the initiatives you're trying to put in place, and the change and the ideation you're trying to push through, it's not just for the sake of the business. Still, you know, we will all benefit from the success of Be.EV because we are all shareholders. So, it creates quite a different kind of cultural dynamic, which is the main thing I would say. I think it's just important to give people a sense, from the most junior to the most senior, that their voice is important and that their contribution is important and will be rewarded. And I think it just is, as I say, it just sends out a really nice message about the kind of company we are and how much we value our people.

Liz Allan [00:05:35]:
I think that that empowerment, I use that word a lot. That level of empowerment makes such a difference because, actually, if you get a very different sort of feeling, you know, from the business. I go in and do consultancy work and improvement, and it's very different if you've got people feeling that they're empowered. They know that they've got a voice because they matter rather than just being like a number on a, you know, in the old days it was a clocking in card, you know, and on a, you know, just a number in a business. So that's that sounds brilliant.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:06:12]:
Yeah. And it is genuinely accompanied by being a very flat organisation. And I've worked in many companies where they say it's flat and non-hierarchical, and it's been BS. It's been quite hierarchical. They just hide it behind a bit of sort of glossy fuzziness. But this place genuinely has a very flat structure. I mean, the other day, our chief exec needed to meet with the company's most junior member. He's a chap called James G.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:06:38]:
You know, shout out to the big G. You know, early twenties, an absolute diamond, and that just happened. You know, there's just no airs and graces, and everyone plays to their strengths, and we just get on with it. And it's it's, yeah, it's got a great vibe.

Liz Allan [00:06:53]:
I love that. And, actually, the other thing that really stands out to me is the fact that you, as an organisation, talk about this community-led approach. So if we're looking strategy-wise, how does that shape the strategy when looking at community-led?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:07:14]:
Yeah. We talked a lot about community. And to be honest, some people have found it quite difficult to wrap their heads around what we see as quite an ethereal term with different ways of interpreting it. So we tend to bundle the kind of customer centricity, the customer community piece, closely together. There are sort of two sides of the same coin. And by the community, we mean both the physical communities where we kind of launch new sites, so that's about place-making, place building, it's about the urban realm, it's about consultation and engaging with local people. But it's equally about digital communities and communities of drivers. We're passionate about putting the driver absolutely at the centre of what we do.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:07:57]:
We were chatting earlier just as a bit of an intro when we said there's quite a lot of fascination with kits and tech in this space. But, in our more pretentious moments, as we like to call them, we prefer human wear over hardware. So it's about experience designed around what our drivers want and what they're telling us, not thinking that we're smarter than them. And that's just a fundamental part of our strategy. I know you think that's a good idea, but I went to a site, and nobody understood what the hell you were talking about, so it's not a good idea. So we need to rethink. So, yeah, it's a big part of what we do.

Liz Allan [00:08:35]:
It's funny. Because, the terminology, if people are moving to electric, there is so there's so many different terms and words and phrases and things like that that a regular petrol or diesel driver moving willing to move over be like what is all this, you know, find it, try not to understand kilowatt, you know, price per kilowatt hour or the charge at your CCS versus Chademo and then you've got your different power charging. Even, you know, it is so confusing. Yeah.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:09:14]:
This may be quite typical of a sort of an early adopter type innovation, that this design is too blind to science. And we really need to move away from that. I mean, we've been here for a year, and I'm still constantly asking people,

Marie-France Van Heel [00:09:29]:
Saying, what what does that mean? Why is that a term? I was just looking earlier at something that's that map, and, you know, we love that map, and they, you know, they had they had charging they had some peculiar terminology, which was not a charge point, and not a connector, and not a charger. It was like some other word. I'm like, we all need to get a grip, as an industry, as CPOs. And I think the desire is there. You know, Charge UK, the body does a lot of work. Let's simplify this. People are confused. And our our most significant threat is just confusion.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:10:03]:
Confusion, you know, fake news, shall we say?

Liz Allan [00:10:06]:
Well, there's that as well, isn't there? But, yeah, people are feeling confused and yeah. There was a friend of mine, and I was talking about this to somebody else on the podcast recently. But a friend of mine, and her husband just got an Audi E Tron. And at the moment, they haven't got a home charger, but got kind of, you know, a granny, what we call a granny cable. Now, she wouldn't understand why it was called a granny cable. You know? 

Marie-France Van Heel [00:10:30]:
And How do you like that term either? No.

Liz Allan [00:10:31]:
I know. It just sounds a bit rude. So there are a number of things that need to change, don't they? As I say, for her to come in, her husband will be driving the car mostly. But it's there's just it's just this big leap. And some people might not want to leap because they think, oh, god. I don't get that.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:10:55]:
Yeah. When we launched some of our new sites, it was really interesting because we always welcomed all the community there. We have, we've got 40,000 members, so we've got our kind of Be.EV community, who gets discounted charging, and who are part of the lifeblood of what we do, and telling us what's working and what's not working. And they come along to our events, events. And often, people come along and say, I've just got my car, and I've never done a public charge. I've just sat down here because I have no idea what I'm doing. And it's just brilliant. And it just shows that I think the market needs to wake up to the fact that, you know, we are not explaining this in a cohesive, coherent and transparent way.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:11:35]:
A friend of mine just went to try to buy a car with a friend. And even in the dealership, they were like, oh, you're lucky. This one's an automatic. I'm like, it's an EV. You know, there's so much misinformation and lack of knowledge that that is the enemy of progress, of people making the switch. It's incumbent on all of us to really take it back to basics and explain, you know, why making the switch to EV is such a brilliant decision, and why, you know, public EV charging is just a brilliant add-on to home charging. And, you know, it's for everyone.

Liz Allan [00:12:14]:
It makes you just make me smile because of what you said about the dealerships. You know, I mean, I had, and people know this, if they've been listening for a while when I was kind of going out for test drives and EVs, I had one situation where the this, the sales lady, said to me, are you sure you don't want to bring your husband? Because it's quite an expensive purchase. And I was like, well, I'm the one who's gonna be driving the vehicle, so there's not any point because he likes public transport, etcetera, you know, cycling. And then she also told me that she preferred petrol to diesel cars. You know? So you are going into this, but I don't know how much I don't think it's changed too much yet. 

Marie-France Van Heel [00:12:58]:
So that's still a long way to go.

Liz Allan [00:12:59]:
Yeah. So it is about all levels, isn't it? It's about trying to kinda counter all that misinformation.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:13:09]:
Yeah. And I think the way I describe it to my team is we should be the number one choice for the new baby. So you know the Tesla here is brilliant. It's very sleek and wonderful. But if you're a new EV driver, we want them to think, right, the first place I'm going to go is EV because they will have absolute clarity of signage. There's going to be great instructions. The screens are going to tell me what to do. It's going to be very, very intuitive and seamless.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:13:34]:
And, you know, we're not 100% there yet. You know, there's still a lot of work to do. You know, it's not our kit. You see, we buy kits and we have to work within the software confines of that kit. But that's really why we wanna be the newbie network. You know, the place people know that's gonna be an easy, seamless and just kind of a welcoming place to charge.

Liz Allan [00:13:53]:
Because I, I took somebody for their 1st public charging session probably about 2, 3 weeks ago now. And that was interesting because I was in a loan car. I was in a Kia eNiro that somebody lent me for 10 days. And, of course, my car, usually, I'd reverse into a spot, so I was gonna show her how I do it. And, of course, I reversed him, forgetting that the e Niro has a charging port at the front. So, you know, that that was a that was a bit of a start, but then she was sorting it out, and we couldn't get it to initiate. We couldn't get the charger to work. What we'd not done, because there wasn't anything on the screen to tell us what to do, And because the way my my my brain works, I hadn't looked up to the sign that was kind of like, you know, about how many feet above me to the left sort of thing.

Liz Allan [00:14:48]:
There was nothing on the screen to follow it, you know, and it's a CPO that I've used. But I think I was flapping because I wanted to make sure that she was okay. And, actually, yeah, so we did the wrong we did the wrong dance. We did the plug-in then try and initiate when oh, you know, and tap, but we should have done the tap and then plug-in. So it was kind of she got there, and she was fine. And she's used the charger since, but she said, I'm glad you were here.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:15:17]:
Yeah. Also, not all charges are the same. So I think I was at a motorway service station, charging with one of our competitors. I had a great charging experience. You know, we need all CPOs to be successful in this space.

Liz Allan [00:15:29]:
Of course. 

Marie-France Van Heel [00:15:29]:
Again, it was quite different, and I nearly cancelled the charge of the car next to
the car there. And I thought I needed to deactivate the charge, but I didn't. I need to press stop. So, every bit of kit is slightly different. Once you get used to it, it's pretty intuitive. But, yeah, it's a lot for people to process. It's Yeah. We haven't made it that easy on ourselves or our driver.

Liz Allan [00:15:50]:
I was  gonna say it's not quite like I was gonna use, sort of like the Apple versus Android. It's kind of Apple versus lots of Android or Android versus lots of Apple, right? Really? Because there are just so many different ways to to do stuff. But like you say, you do get used to it, but actually, we just need to make it intuitive and standardise. As I know, it's easier said than done when I say standardization, and that can be a multitude of things. If you can't standardise it, just make sure it's visible because people learn differently. Some will learn from a little a little, an image or a little video, and some people learn by reading, and it's just that kind of thing, isn't it? It's trying to try to kind of do it for as many as you can. Agreed. 100%. So tell me about your role, if you will, within within the organisation because obviously, from what you're saying, the customer journey is really, really important.

Liz Allan [00:16:52]:
So what are you doing to make sure that that is the case? That's kind of what you're concentrating on?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:17:01]:
Yeah. I came in as the CMO, sort of chief marketing officer. But marketing and customers are so intertwined and interwoven.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:17:10]:
It quickly made sense. Within a small team, you know, we don't have innumerable departments that take on the customer experience piece as well. So, within my team, we handle all things, such as marketing, comms, B2B, B2C, lead gen, driver engagement campaigns, roaming partners, and that whole piece. Then, we have a separate team within our team that manages the whole CX piece. And that customer, I mean, everybody talks about customer centricity. Still, I think the critical thing that how we describe it is, it's about brilliant basics with delightful touches. At this stage of the maturity curve of the industry, we still need to get those basics right. There is no point in adding bells and whistles when it's just a non-intuitive experience to charge in the first place. So we're really honed in on brilliant basics.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:18:02]:
And then we're just adding things on, you know, as we hear from drivers, things that kind of add value to their experience. 

Marie-France Van Heel [00:18:09]:
I think there's other things that are a critical part of that customer centricity, which is all about fair pricing.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:18:13]:
It's about sort of welcoming sites. It's about that ease and reliability, and it's about that kind of engagement, that engagement with with the community piece. So we spent quite a lot of time segmenting our audience, segmenting our drivers, and creating some fantastic pen portraits and personas. Every time we think about a new initiative or site, we think about it through the lens of our personas, you know. So it's a brilliant exercise and I highly recommend teams everywhere, whatever industry they're in, to kind of really think about making decisions through the lens of your customers. And that kind of approach to any portrait can be helpful. We have done a lot of work to develop our customer experience strategy, thinking about the digital strategy as well as the physical strategy, all of the touch points along the way, and thinking about where are the pain points and where we can make quick and easy improvements and where are things just quite difficult to improve and where we might just communicate more deeply with our customer, This bit of the experience isn't great yet.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:19:21]:
We're sorry. We're working on it. We and other CPOs sometimes have some issues with call centers. That can be an added stage of friction. So, we are constantly looking to improve incrementally as well as, you know, making sure we hone in on the things that matter to drivers.

Liz Allan [00:19:40]:
No. That's brilliant. And like you say, there are things that you can't you can't do anything about. Well, so I was gonna talk about VAT on public charging. You know, that isn't in your realm. It is kind of like you're saying about Charge UK. Charge UK is is doing a great job, and you have more of a voice as a community of charge point operators. But that's kind of the government side.

Liz Allan [00:20:08]:
So although you can try and encourage the government to kind of reduce public charging costs, you know, it might take some time. So, but people residents don't always understand this, do they? You see, they don't understand why I am paying 20% VAT. Well, you know, that's kind of out of your hands.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:20:27]:
And, I mean, let's be honest, when you compare it to home charging, public charging can often be significantly more expensive. Some people do sort of bulk at the price. You know, when they've gone to a great site with some great ultra rapid charging and cool load balancing technology, and they've had a 5% to 80% charge in 20 minutes, they think, okay, fair use, that was great. And people are more accepting. Like, people have been quite tolerant.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:20:58]:
But I mean, as we have a new wave of drivers that come on board, they are going to have less less tolerance?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:21:04]:
Yeah. Honestly, we need to think about how we improve. Yeah. The VAT thing is what it is. As I say, places, you know, companies and organisations like Charge UK are doing a great job of lobbying the government on the inequity of that. But we just keep we need to tell our story and showcase and prove to drivers that the public charging experience is a great one. And a great addendum to home charging. We're not, you know, it's never, we're never expecting people to charge, you know, fully publicly.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:21:34]:
But, you know, we need to think about the next wave of drivers. Not everyone's got the benefit of a driveway and not just parking.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:21:40]:
You know, people are gonna be heavily reliant on public charging, and those are the people we need to keep front of mind as we progress and build out our network for sure.

Liz Allan [00:21:48]:
And, actually, and I was, and I and I know I kinda said this in the background, but I saw your pen portrait on LinkedIn I love it. You know? And that's that way of thinking. It's it's fun. It's interesting. You can see there's a difference when I see you on LinkedIn and things like that. You know? And I was gonna say, so you're kind of mostly up in the north at the moment, aren't you? Is that right?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:22:15]:
Yeah. So we're kind of like we call ourselves a national network in the northwest. So, our chief exec is a chap called Asif. You probably know him well. He's a Liverpool lad. He had always wanted to start this company up in the north.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:22:33]:
And the relationship with Transport for Greater Manchester cemented the start of our journey in this space. But yes, we are now very much a national network. I mean, we don't have coverage everywhere. You know, we're not as some of the other CPOs. But if you think about our last few kinds of new sites, we've been launching sites in Chesterfield. We've got a great site in Shepton Mallet. I always say that wrong.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:23:04]:
So Shepton Mallet. I know I know it's It's it's the French Belgian in me that just wants to say, Mallet

Liz Allan [00:23:08]:
Well, of course, you would. And that sounds gorgeous.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:23:11]:
I can never get that word right. So my team constantly take the piss out of me. Great site in Sheffield, Sheffield Parkway. So we've got some great sites in the pipeline down south. So we have a very much national outlook. And I think CPOs and charging networks need a degree of that sort of national footprint to drive that awareness and repeat usage. Because at the end of the day, we're all about utilisation. You know, we sell power.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:23:40]:
That is our business. You know, it's not more complicated than that than that as it always says. So it's about great sites, great brand awareness, great loyalty, and, you know, building a sense of trust and usage. That's what that's what it's what it's all about.

Liz Allan [00:23:57]:
Yeah, loyalty, and trust will bring that usage and increase that utilisation anyway, won't it? I mean, we were talking earlier about customer feedback. And you know, I I was saying to you, we had this white paper out, plugging into the future. And, one of the big things that shocked me in some ways was that there were only 15% of the drivers that we surveyed that actually felt that their feedback was being listened to. You know? I know it's not easy because I know it's not easy. You're putting £1,000s of pounds into these charging networks, but it's also, like you're saying about kind of, building a bond and trust with those EV driver. They are your customers. You want them to come back.

Liz Allan [00:24:50]:
So, why would you not show them that you're listening? Really? I don't mean you specifically. I'm just saying generally.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:24:58]:
It's a really good point. We ran a customer survey in March. I can't remember exactly in the spring. We had 4,800 respondents. I mean, this is not insignificant.

Liz Allan [00:25:10]:
No. No. That's that's big.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:25:12]:
People are highly engaged, want to be heard, and want their voices heard, and want to participate. So it's been brilliant for us. In terms of insights, it's been fantastic because we've got just our drivers are constantly telling us, you know, what they want. We also have a great initiative called our test drivers, which is like a much smaller, really vocal, really engaged kind of group who do a lot of beta testing of what we're doing and who help us kind of evolve our community proposition. So, yeah, it's all about listening to drivers and not having the arrogance of thinking, you know, what good looks like. It also helps when you work somewhere where most people are EV drivers. You see, we are customers ourselves.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:25:54]:
So we're constantly challenging each other, saying, I just, I did, went to this site. This sounds on paper like it's excellent, but it was clunky. I needed to rethink that. So yeah. Absolutely.

Liz Allan [00:26:07]:
You're so right. It's about what experience would you want? You know. And I kinda say to people who, and I don't know what vehicle you drive, but I kinda say to people, you know, if you're in the charging business or you're working for a CPO or you're trying out these other charges and you're just using the Tesla supercharger network, you're not seeing the full picture. And it's very different, isn't it? Because, you know, obviously, you've got Tesla, you've got plug and charge on it, you know, and, actually, that's seamless. It just works, you know, seamlessly as most people say, whereas it's different for all of the other vehicles. So, you know, actually having that experience, it is about what would you want. What do you want? You can't quite get to the plug and charge just yet, you know? So what do you want? What is the ideal experience? So for you to actually all be driving EVs and having that conversation is brilliant, especially because, you know, coming from these, a lot of it is tech orientated; you know, there's probably a lot of tech orientated people, I'm assuming. I'm sorry. I'm just assuming that is within the business.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:27:24]:
There always are, and some people get into the kind of the nitty gritty. But, I mean, we try and think about it, a bit like nudge theory and behaviour change. This is all about humans and behaviours. I was driving past the Trafford Centre, which is a huge mall.

Liz Allan [00:27:43]:
I know it. Yeah.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:27:46]:
You know it well. And the number of people queuing at one of the other CPO's charging stations, who will remain nameless. Great service. Just queues and anxiety. And I felt like saying, we have an ultra-rapid charging hub, literally 5 minutes away.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:28:04]:
Yeah. And I was like, wow. Okay. Not that I'm not going to use the other CPO, but it's just I might actually change my behaviour slightly.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:28:13]:
I'll just go to the motorway service station where it's going to be very busy. I might just do a 4 minute detour and charge somewhere else. But, you know, it's incumbent on all of us to kind of explain to drivers that actually you should think about charging not through a petrol, 4 quarter mile. It's a different mindset and it's a different experience. And, you know, once they start experimenting and go on the Electroverse and plan their journey, they love it, and it's great.

Liz Allan [00:28:39]:
I'd love for I don't know whether this is possible at a CPO hub or whether it would be on one of the apps like ZapMap or Electroverse. Still, I'd love it to actually be something to say if this if this hub is full, the nearest hub is yours or someone else's or whatever. And I know it's promoting another organisation, another CPO, but the person who's reading that will be like, oh, well, they're quite you know, that's supposed to be quite a big collaborate collaboration here, 

Marie-France Van Heel [00:29:15]:
You know? And just And that is the Electroverse, isn't it? It's a neutral platform, and it's undoubtedly the best of charge. I mean, there's a lot of work to be done with the in-car apps. I mean, they're not. 

Liz Allan [00:29:22]:
Yeah. I know. Yeah.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:29:24]:
You know? I'm sure there's a lot of evolution happening there with the OEMs. It'd be interesting to see where they land.

Liz Allan [00:30:05]:
So I was I was going to talk about the fact that you are quite different again in this as an organisation because you're providing RFID cards as well throughyour website. And that's how I got a hold of 1 because I was thinking, I quite like to be able to use an RFID card. After all, sometimes I have found charging experiences to be a little bit tricky. What made you want to do that?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:30:38]:
Well, we started with a real passion for having this membership scheme. So we're not trying to have a membership scheme. We've got millions of different add-ons, and you get x percent on gyms. We're just keeping it really tight. You know, charge with us, you'll hear all about our new charging stations, you'll get great information and educational content, and you'll get discounted charging. It's as simple as that. But we're very open to being an open network. I think at the moment, there are 6 ways you can pay.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:31:05]:
So we're we're on multiple roaming partners. We're very pro-roaming partners.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:31:10]:
You can pay contactless. You can pay by app. You can pay RFID. I think it's back to that sense that every driver is different. And why not just cater for all needs and wants? Sometimes, I charge, and I am just quick contactless payment. Sometimes, I just quite like using the RFID. It is just quite handy, and my phone is plugged in, you know. So we are really into that ethos of just an open network and multiple pay methods that cater to different people's needs and wants.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:31:38]:
And many people, you know, are still quite fond of the RFID. Some people think it's old tech, but it suits some people. And we need to think about all of our audience groups, and not everyone is a total kind of app, kind of proficient. You know, some old drivers, you know, prefer different technology. So, yeah, we're open to all types of payment methods.

Liz Allan [00:31:58]:
No. I like it. I like it. Like I say, you know, just being able to have that card. I'm not saying that I would use it all the time, but I would actually if there was you know, the situation where I was gonna do that, then, yeah. I think this opts for multiple options, like you say, giving people a choice. That's the biggest thing, isn't it?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:32:21]:
Yeah. It's it's leaning into how people want to pay and how they want to charge and not imposing that on them. And I think that's been quiet, and I know some CPOs view this quite differently, and some are not very open to being on roaming partners, but, you know, I mean, we're obviously part of the Octopus family. But, you know, we love the guys that they like for us. We're doing all sorts of things with them, trying trialling new products, innovations, and, you know, we can we're all learning all of the time, and, you know, it would be really interesting to see what kind of wins out at the end of the day. I mean, you know, people like contactless payment, and I think that is something you just have to be open to. It's so convenient, isn't it?

Liz Allan [00:32:59]:
Absolutely. So you've got the different sites and the different hubs. Where are they mostly? Are they very, very different places? Are you keeping them to specific types of, sites? Or just give us a little bit of a breakdown if you can.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:33:19]:
I mean, we tend to have some areas that we're prioritiaing. So we're quite big in retail parks. We've heard a lot from our customers that the idea is that they go off to charge, and then if they're lucky, there's a bit of an amenity, and they can do a bit of shopping. It's not really how people think anymore. They are charging to fit in with their lifestyle, not the other way around. Yeah. So we tend to put now charges where people want to be. So, I am doing a lot of work in retail parks.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:33:48]:
And I think there are 2 different typologies, isn't there? There's the on-the-go. People are making a long journey and need someone to charge, you know, en route, and there's sort of destination or dwell charging. We're probably more in the dwell, sort of destination place, space. But, yeah, you know, public car parks, retail parks, that's our sweet spot at the moment.

Liz Allan [00:34:13]:
I mean, It does make a difference, as I say. And I'm I'm I am gonna repeat it, the fact that you're listening and you're proving to your community that you're listening, you know, to me that is so powerful, isn't it?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:34:32]:
And I know sometimes, our drivers can get a bit frustrated about certain things like why are you not charging a charge you're charging up here or there. And, you know, you do have to explain some of the complexities around land and leases and power and DNOs and, you know, bay rentals and, you know, we have to work with our site partners and and and put charging points, and charging hubs, you know, where they want us to and where we can reach a mutual agreement around what's good for them, what's good for the community, and what's good for the shopper or the drivers. So there's always a give and take. But, again, I feel that our drivers usually tend, once you explain this to them, just explain how it works quite transparently. Mhmm. Like, okay. Yeah. We get it.

Liz Allan [00:35:21]:
So what, what feedback have you had with regard to accessibility on the sites, then? Are disabled drivers happy with the the sites overall?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:35:35]:
I mean, we are trying to make sure that every single one of our hubs, our new hubs will have a fully accessible PAS compliant bay.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:35:43]:
Every single site.

Liz Allan [00:35:44]:
Yeah.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:35:44]:
Obviously, we do have legacy sites.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:35:47]:
More sites on the street, you know, two spaces in a car park, which are not particularly accessible, and yet we know that. And there's no point saying, well, it's not our fault, you know, we couldn't get more bays from the landowner, from, you know, We need to we all need, as an industry, to do more, and it needs to be our part.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:36:08]:
I was chatting to one of my colleagues earlier, and he was saying wouldn't it be great if, on every app, you could filter through accessible database?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:36:18]:
You can't actually do that at the moment. So if you're a driver with some sort of, some form of disability, you can't actually filter for sites with accessible. I just I just couldn't believe that that didn't exist. That just seems like an answer.

Liz Allan [00:36:32]:
That's something we need to work on. On.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:36:34]:
But we've just launched 2 big sites, 1 at Decathlon in Stockport and 1 at Parkway in Sheffield, which fully have client bay. And, you know, we're passionate about making sure that all of our sites moving forward have that. And, you know, we listen to, you know, sometimes, I don't even know the technical term, but there's that kind of weird, kind of rubber thing that they put at the end of the bay.

Liz Allan [00:36:57]:
The wheel stop.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:36:59]:
That. There you go. Thank you very much. You know, our drivers who have, have more sort of special needs, they hate those. It's just an absolute nightmare if you're in a wheelchair.

Liz Allan [00:37:09]:
It's getting rammed. Yeah.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:37:10]:
You never put those in. So it's things like that. It's little things that we don't even think about as seatbelts, and we need just to make sure we're doing the right thing by the drivers who just need a little bit more help and assistance.

Liz Allan [00:37:22]:
Mhmm. There's a long way to go on that point, though.

Liz Allan [00:37:25]:
But I suppose, in a way, saying you're saying that you can't filter, it's a shame that we can't integrate Charge Safe. You know? So the work that Kate Tyrrell and the team do at Charge Safe, obviously, that's what they look at. You know? It's a shame we can't integrate that into all the different charging apps.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:37:44]:
I'm sure it's on the cards. It's just, you know, about, you know, a feed. I'm sure it's feasible, and I'm sure someone much more intelligent than me is thinking about that as we speak. So let's see.

Liz Allan [00:37:54]:
Fingers crossed. So you guys were nominated for the EVIESlast week as well, weren't you? Did you go there?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:38:03]:
The team did. I didn't. We've got the Transport and Energy Awards sort of this week. I mean, I'll I'll be brutally honest. We're not the world's biggest fan of some of these awards. The biggest reward is when your drivers love your network, and you will go through their loyalty. But it is nice to be recognised by your peers, to be recognised by the industry, and it's a great morale boost for teams, you know, when when you are nominated and you win. And sometimes, it is nice to take a moment to reflect, and have a short moment of self congratulation.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:38:37]:
I mean, we didn't win at the EVIES, but, you know, we had fun.

Liz Allan [00:38:40]:
The fact you were nominated in the first place as a kind of a growing network is is, you know, is fantastic. So I think you should give yourself a pat on the, you know, tick or a pat on the back or whatever you wanna do for that. But, you know, just to be actually be.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:38:55]:
Thank you to you guys for recognising the work that we've been doing.

Liz Allan [00:38:59]:
So, just as a kind of a final question, I wanted to ask you, and I know this might sound a really silly question, but I'm speaking to more women on the podcast now who are actually involved in in EV charging. And overall, it's quite male-orientated. And so, guys, if you're listening, please don't take this offence, don't be offended by this question at all. What is it like to be a female and, you know, a woman in EV charging? I mean, for you, it sounds like you're very kind, open and inclusive as an organisation. If you look outside, how do you feel about how that looks?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:39:48]:
Yeah. I mean, I think we need more women in this industry. And as I said to you before, this is not an industry about cars. This is an industry about trans. Yeah. So I think it's an industry about people and drivers, and understanding drivers, and helping them make the switch so that we can all have a cleaner planet where children are dying from breathing in toxic pollution.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:40:14]:
And I mean, I'm actually on the board at Be.EV, I have been for a few months. And I'll be honest, I am the only woman on the board, so sometimes you feel a little bit sandwiched between many men. But there's some way to go. And I think we do have a slightly different sensibility, a different way of thinking, a different way of doing things. It's not better.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:40:35]:
It's just different.

Liz Allan [00:40:36]:
Yeah.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:40:36]:
I think what we bring in our diversity of experience, you know, irrespective of our genders, is is just is it brings a richness to this sector and a novel, an original way of thinking, and some creativity, and some ideas. So I've always felt very welcome. We've got a very mixed group here, you know, genders, religion, you know, sexual orientations, very, very open. And so it's an excellent environment for me. But, yeah, sometimes when you go to an event or other and it's just a lot of blokes.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:41:13]:
Talking about techy stuff, you have to remind them kind of, you know, to bring it back down to the human level.

Liz Allan [00:41:20]:
That's great. So, final question. What would you like to see with your long-term customer experience in the business?

Marie-France Van Heel [00:41:32]:
I mean, it's kind of a bit counterintuitive, but we kind of want it to be a non-experience. It's so good, it's so seamless, you arrive, tap, charge, go. And it's like, I can't even remember charging. That was so good. So that is the dream. The best experience, but the non-experience is the one that is so seamless, you don't even have to think about it. But I think from our perspective, we want people to charge with a smile. People are so proud of their EVs. I mean, these are amazing.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:42:05]:
These cars are unbelievable. They are so cool. The technology is the drive, and the experience is wonderful. The charging experience then tends to fall a little short. So they can ride in this amazing car, and there's this heavy cable, and this clunky thing, and there's rubbish on the door.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:42:20]:
You know? So, we want to ensure that the experience of the car is reflected in this experience of the charge. And we want to make it a bit more fun and playful. You know, we're quite a fun and playful brand. You know, we try to be a bit quirky. We try not to feel overly corporate. And I think again that is a lesson for some from some CPOs. I think they started life as we need to attract land owners, because they are our customers, because we put charges on their land. And there's been a kind of a mutual industry-wide sense that that's not the customer.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:42:52]:
The customer is the driver. Yes. So I hope that answers your question.

Liz Allan [00:42:56]:
Oh, god. Yeah. Totally. I could go into so much more detail on that one with you. I really could. So yeah. Absolutely. I'm gonna finish there because I think that's a good place to finish.

Liz Allan [00:43:09]:
And I wanna say thank you for your time because that's been it's been interesting. It was really, interesting to get to know you. That's fun.

Marie-France Van Heel [00:43:19]:
Thank you. And we've talked a few times, and I'm glad we made this happen. You know, this is not usually the area I thrive in. I don't do a lot of podcasts, but I've enjoyed it. It's been very conversational and really fun. And I hope your listeners and viewers find it, enjoyable as well.

Liz Allan [00:43:33]:
They definitely will do. I'm sure of it. And, actually, to you, the viewers and the listeners, I wanna say, please spread the word about the podcast. We want people to hear Marie France and what Be.EV is doing and what wonderful things it is doing. So please, if you're watching it on YouTube, subscribe and put comments on it. If you're listening to it, please, again, you can comment, or you can subscribe—all of this. And if you see it on social media, please share because, actually, that's the only way that we can reach a larger audience and get people to hear about this and the truth behind all of this as well.

Liz Allan [00:44:13]:
So Marie France, thank you for your time. It's been brilliant. And I want to say thank you to everybody else for listening and watching. And I shall see you next time. Goodbye.