Last week, I drove to Crossgates Mall to watch Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Of the five Indiana Jones films, I’d put this at #3 on the list – below Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and above Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and way above Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
But that’s not why I’m writing this blog post.
Of the many movie theaters I can visit in the Capital District, Crossgates Mall’s Regal Cinemas has a parking lot with over a dozen EV charging stations. And the stations are all J1772 handle compatible – which means they will work with my Chevrolet Volt Premier (“Lightning’s Girl”).
This is a positive. If an organization has a car charging station, I’m more likely to frequent its establishment. That’s why I’ll go to Saratoga Casino more often than to Rivers Casino (Saratoga Casino has harness racing AND ChargePoint chargers). It’s why I’ll buy my groceries at Honest Weight Co-Opoerative rather than at the chain stores (they’ve got free ChargePoint charging as well).
I didn’t recognize the charging company name – Livingston – but heck, I can add another car charging app to my phone, no big whoop. And while my car’s charging, I can watch Indiana Jones and scarf down some stale popcorn that’s been drenched in quiescent butter-flavored oil and wash it all down with five drops of soda surrounded by five pounds of ice in a cup. 😀
Okay, generate an account. Name … password … and send.
ERROR
Must be bad Wi-Fi. Let’s try it again. Name … password … and create account. Send.
ERROR
I checked my other two charging applications – ChargePoint and EV Connect – but neither of them partner with Livingston Energy.
I looked on the charging station. There’s a phone number.
Yeah, right. Like customer service will be available on a Saturday night.
Okay, let’s call.
“Livingston Energy, how may I help you?”
Woah. Okay. Let’s try this. I explained to the representative that I encountered difficulties in creating a new charging account.
“Oh, that’s too bad. Let me see what’s going on. It looks like you’re at Crossgates Mall in Albany, New York, is that correct?”
Well now. Not only did she get the name of the mall correct, she also said “Albany” properly. It’s not AAAL-bennie or al-BAYNY. Brownie points on that one.
“Which connector are you trying to use?”
“I’m at Station 6.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’m showing Station 6 is malfunctioning. Can you use Stations 5 or 7?”
I can do that. I connected the Station 7 charging cord to Lightning’s Girl.
I explained that I tried to create an account to use for this service, but the account creation software just straight-up kludged.
“Well, I think we’ll need to work on this over the weekend. So why don’t I do this for you, sir. I don’t want you to miss your movie, I’ll make sure your car gets charged and we won’t charge you this time around. And once we get everything fixed, we hope you’ll use Livingston Energy charging stations in the future.”
Okay … so how much will it cost me to charge my car?
“We charge 25 cents per kilowatt hour. So for your make and model, it shouldn’t cost more than $5 per charge.”
$5 I can live with.
The next day – on a Sunday – I received a call back from Livingston Energy. They confirmed that a software update on their part had bricked new signups, and if I wanted to try the software again, everything should be fine.
Okay. In goes the profile … on goes a strong alphanumeric password … and send.
WELCOME CHUCK MILLER
Nice. So the next time I go to Crossgates Mall for a movie, even though I’ll most likely get nicked for $16 for the movie ticket and another $12 for the popcorn and soda … at least I’ll have my car charged while I watch the film for the low cost of 25 cents per kilowatt hour.
And you know what? I’m good with that, and I’m good with Livingston Energy’s customer service.
You know … sometimes when I get GREAT customer service, I like to share it on my blog.
I mean … wouldn’t you like to share news about great customer service??
Chuck The Writer 