- Company Name: bp Pulse
- Industry: Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Infrastructure.
- Number of Locations: 1,476 EV charging locations across the United Kingdom.
- Main Challenge: Transitioning from the Chargemaster brand to Pulse, requiring an update of outdated branding and poor-quality photos in online listings.
- Key Objective: Utilize Uberall to update and enhance local online listings with high-quality, site-specific photos.
- Method: Leveraging the bp Pulse workforce to photograph EV charging stations using a custom app, enhancing employee involvement and engagement.
- Results as of Q4 2023: 254 locations updated with quality photos, accounting for approximately 17% of total locations.
- Impact on Online Presence: 28% increase in map clicks for Pulse locations since the start of the optimisations initiative started in February.
Get the full scoop!👇
Branding Change: Opportunity to update online listing photos
bp Pulse faced a considerable challenge when transitioning from its former brand, Chargemaster, to Pulse. This change left a trail of outdated branding and poor-quality photos across their online listings, which consisted largely of customer submissions or unrepresentative stock images. Addressing this legacy data was crucial to ensure customers received accurate and high-quality information about EV charger locations.
The Strategy: Leveraging Employee Participation
The initial phase of the project involved standardizing the online listings by uploading a generic photo for each location. The real game-changer, however, was the second phase, which focused on personalizing each listing with site-specific photos. Given the unique challenge of having many standalone EV chargers without on-site managers, bp Pulse turned to an underutilized resource: their employees.
bp Pulse developed a custom app to guide employees in photographing charging stations during their regular activities. This approach not only facilitated the collection of authentic, site-specific photos but also actively engaged employees in a company-wide initiative.
The Uberall team provided best practice guides for employees on which types of photos local search algorithms prefer. Employees were encouraged to take photos of the chargers themselves, the surrounding location (including any key landmarks), and most importantly parking restrictions. By including parking restrictions in EV charger listings, customers can choose the best location to suit their time/day preferences.
The app displays Pulse locations near employees and gives them the ability to upload photos when nearby according to best practices set out by the Uberall team. It also includes a competitive leaderboard and periodic incentives, creating a dynamic and engaging environment for the workforce!
Additionally, a dedicated photo campaign was set up on Microsoft Teams to maintain high engagement levels, allowing employees to share images and compete on the leaderboard.
Collaborative Review and Activation with Uberall
After the collection and preliminary internal review of photos, the Uberall team played a crucial role. They meticulously provided best practice guides for location photos and advised on other critical listing data (parking availability, opening hours, nearby businesses and more), to ensure it was collected and would create the most complete listings possible.
If photos were deemed poor quality or not showing the correct information, this would alert the bp team to have another go at taking local photos. Once the full listing information was collected, it was uploaded to the Uberall platform which quickly and easily distributed the photos and listing information across all directories supported.
The partnership between Uberall and bp Pulse ensured that completed locations were efficiently updated and removed from the employee queue.
Results and Impact
Since the initiative's launch in Q4 of 2023, bp Pulse has already updated 254 out of 1476 locations with quality local photos, marking a 17% completion rate in a few short months. And this is just the beginning.
More importantly, this effort has significantly increased clicks to directions for Pulse locations, and when combined with the wider profile optimisations has seen an increase of 28% clicks to directions. The initiative also fostered a sense of community and purpose among employees, enhancing overall engagement.
