ISO 18295 and 15-Day SLA: EV Charging Call Center Audit Readiness
asistanim.ai Team
Editor
A certificate is not just a piece of paper
ISO 18295-1 is the international standard for how a Customer Contact Centre is run. The EPDK amendment makes it mandatory for Turkish charging network operators by September 2026. The practical point: when an auditor arrives, "we have the certificate" is not enough. The processes underneath the certificate need to be running live and need to be evidence-ready.
The five chapters of the standard that matter most to a CPO are below.
1. Service level management
- Written SLA: response time, resolution time, abandon rate thresholds.
- Real-time reporting: alert at the moment of breach.
- Monthly SLA performance report.
EPDK's 15 business day resolution rule sits inside this frame. It is not enough on its own. You also have to define and report response time (for example "average pickup within 30 seconds") and abandon rate against your own thresholds.
2. Call quality and recording
- Voice and screen recording of calls.
- Transcript and categorisation.
- Monthly random sampling for quality scoring.
- Calibration sessions.
Doing this manually at charging-network scale is impractical. Pulling a random sample from thousands of calls and transcribing them from scratch outruns human capacity.
3. Complaint and feedback management
- Standardised complaint capture.
- Documented escalation path.
- Resolution timer maintained.
- Resolution rationale archived.
This is where EPDK's 15 business day rule is directly audited. The lifecycle of every opened ticket has to be reconstructible.
4. Workforce and training
- Written job descriptions.
- Training plan (product, OCPP basics, driver communication, KVKK).
- Performance review cycle.
- Feedback and development plan.
In a model that uses an AI agent the human side shrinks but does not disappear. The on-call engineer's training and review records will be requested in audit.
5. Risk and continuity
- Business continuity plan (BCP).
- Telephony infrastructure redundancy.
- Data retention and KVKK alignment.
- Vendor audit (BPO or software supplier).
The technical side of the 15-day SLA timer
The clock must start at an unambiguous moment: the second the call is logged. Leaving the start to manual ticket entry creates time loss and makes the timer audit-fragile.
The minimum software has to capture:
| Event | Record |
|---|---|
| Call start | timestamp, call ID, driver ID, station ID, language |
| Agent transcript | full text plus intent tag |
| Ticket open | automatic, same second as call end |
| Escalation | which engineer, why, when |
| Resolution | rationale plus message sent to driver |
| Closure | timestamp plus archive path for audit |
This six-line trail needs to be pullable from a single point for every case. Audit sampling sounds like "show me the full lifecycle of case 12 from last month".
Where the AI agent maps cleanly onto the standard
Behaviours of a voice AI agent that line up with ISO 18295 chapters:
- 100% call recording. No manual sampling decisions. Every call recorded plus transcribed.
- Structured intent tagging. Call type, language and resolution status auto-tagged. The monthly SLA report is a query.
- Automatic ticket open. The SLA timer starts the second the call ends. It does not depend on human entry.
- Documented escalation rules. Which case routes to which engineer is in configuration. Screenshots are available for audit.
- Multilingual quality scoring. The agent scores its own transcript. Human calibration only touches borderline records.
These five behaviours are the first place an auditor reaches when sampling.
Eight-week countdown to audit
Assuming a September 2026 deadline:
| Week | Activity | Output |
|---|---|---|
| -8 | Pick the certification body | Contract |
| -7 | Document current call-handling processes | Process map |
| -6 | SLA thresholds and reporting software | Sample monthly SLA report |
| -5 | Call recording policy, KVKK disclosure | Policy document |
| -4 | Training plan and on-call rota | Training records |
| -3 | Internal audit (mock audit) | Gap list |
| -2 | Corrective actions | Action closure report |
| -1 | Certification submission | Certification process opens |
The internal audit step is critical. Discovering gaps one week before September 2026 leaves no room for correction.
Audit questions that come up often in a hybrid AI model
- How is human oversight of the agent's decisions performed?
- Which cases close automatically and which require human approval?
- At which second of the call is the KVKK disclosure read?
- How is incorrect language detection corrected?
- Can the 15 business day timer be paused, and under which rationale?
A model that has answers to these closes the audit cleanly. A model that does not gets stuck in supplementary documentation.
The build-or-buy call
Some CPOs are getting to ISO 18295 certification without proper call centre software. They tend to carry extra operational drag through the process: manual sampling, scattered spreadsheets, late-detected SLA breaches. asistanim automates that drag away for the charging network call centre. The SLA timer, recording archive, intent tagging and KVKK-compliant consent flow are part of the model itself.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between ISO 18295-1 and 18295-2?
- 18295-1 defines requirements for the party operating the customer contact centre. 18295-2 defines requirements for the party that consumes a contact centre service through a vendor. A CPO running its own centre needs 18295-1. A CPO using a BPO needs 18295-2 plus the vendor's 18295-1 certificate.
- What happens to a case that cannot be closed within 15 business days?
- If the case cannot be resolved within 15 business days the requester must receive a written justification and a revised target. The timer does not pause. The escalation is recorded and the reason is documented for audit.
- How long should call recordings be retained?
- ISO 18295 does not prescribe a minimum retention period. EPDK expects a retention practice aligned with current consumer regulation, typically 24 months. In practice: call recording plus transcript plus ticket history for 24 months, with an isolated path for KVKK erasure requests.
