Turkey EV Charging Regulation 2026: Call Center Compliance Roadmap
asistanim.ai Team
Editor
What changed on 23 March
On 23 March 2026 Turkey's Official Gazette published an amendment to the Charging Service Regulation that bolts customer-side obligations onto charging network operators (CPOs). Holding a half-staffed support line is now a licence risk. Persistent driver complaints triggered EPDK to act; the outcome is a binding rulebook.
The regulation tightens three operational levers.
24/7 uninterrupted service
Every charging network operator must run a call center reachable seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Live 09:00 to 18:00 with overnight voicemail no longer counts. If a driver cannot reach support at 02:17 when a card reader freezes at an AC station outside Adana, the complaint lands on the EPDK audit pile.
ISO 18295-1 certification
Existing licence holders were given six months to align. From September 2026 the call center must be certified to the ISO 18295-1 Customer Contact Centre standard. This is not a paperwork formality. SLA discipline, call recording, quality monitoring, workforce management and training policies all have to be auditable.
15 business day resolution
Every complaint, request or driver enquiry reaching the call center must be conclusively resolved within fifteen business days. "Ticket received" no longer satisfies the rule. Resolution has to be documented and communicated back to the requester.
What CPOs actually run today
Most licensed Turkish CPOs lean on roughly the same setup:
- One or two daytime support agents inside the licence operation.
- WhatsApp coverage during business hours or a partial call center outsource.
- Complaint handling over email with a loose SLA.
The amendment voids that model. It misses on three sides:
- Night and weekend coverage is thin or absent.
- Resolution time is not tracked as a metered clock.
- Audit trails that ISO 18295 demands (call recordings, training records, scheduling artefacts) are not collected consistently.
If an audit landed tomorrow the operator could not hand over clean evidence.
What a voice AI call center actually satisfies
A voice AI agent turns most of the regulation into a default rather than a heroic effort.
- 24/7 answer. The agent picks up first, every call. Night premiums, holiday surcharges and standby rosters drop out of the cost stack.
- Multilingual first contact. A transit truck driver crossing through Türkiye may not speak Turkish. The agent answers in English, German, Russian or Arabic.
- Digital recording. Every call is transcribed, tagged and written to the audit archive. ISO 18295 sampling is one query away.
- Ticket lifecycle. When the call ends a ticket opens automatically, the 15 business day SLA timer starts and the agent escalates as the threshold approaches. Breaches surface in the management report.
- Human handover. When the agent cannot resolve a case it routes to the on-duty operator, or if none is on call, to the next person on the escalation roster. The caller stays on the line.
OCPP and station backend integration is the missing half
Voice answering alone is insufficient. When a driver says "my connector is stuck", "my card is accepted but no current is flowing" or "I need to change my invoice address", an agent without OCPP integration is a translator at best, not a resolver. Resolution speed (and therefore 15-day SLA performance) is bounded by integration depth.
Integration surfaces to verify:
- Real-time charge point state (occupancy, error code).
- Remote command (release connector, reset session).
- Billing and wallet system.
- CRM or ticketing system.
- Recording archive for ISO 18295 audit.
Roadmap to September 2026
The window from today is less than four months. A workable compliance plan follows this rough sequence.
| Week | Activity |
|---|---|
| 1-2 | Baseline current call volume, average response time and resolution time |
| 3-6 | Integrate the AI agent and ticketing system with the station pool and OCPP backend |
| 7-10 | Run human-and-agent live monitoring, measure transcription quality |
| 11-14 | Pre-audit ISO 18295-1 process documentation, recording policy, scheduling |
| 15-18 | Certification submission and corrective actions |
Software installation alone is not enough. The ISO auditor asks for process documentation. Digital recording, written policy and training all have to land at the same time.
The enforcement side
The regulation is direct. Failing to run a 24/7 line, missing resolution SLAs and not holding the ISO 18295 certificate by September 2026 fall under EPDK audit. Fines alone may not bend the P&L but repeat violations create friction at licence renewal. Complaints can also be filed through EPDK's public charging app, so operational gaps surface on the driver side and drag brand reputation with them.
What to do next
Document current lines, resolution times and language coverage first. Then build a backwards timeline that puts the ISO 18295 audit submission at least six weeks before September 2026. asistanim ships this scope as a pre-built model for charging network operations: 24/7 voice agent, multilingual answering, OCPP ticket integration, SLA timer and a complete call archive ready for ISO 18295 audit.
Frequently asked questions
- Who does the new regulation cover?
- Every legal entity holding a charging network operator licence from EPDK, the Turkish energy regulator. Both CPO network operators and sub-operators running stations under a sub-operator agreement are subject to the 24/7 call center requirement.
- When is the ISO 18295-1 certification deadline?
- Existing licence holders received six months to comply after the 23 March 2026 amendment. From September 2026 the call center must be certified to the ISO 18295-1 Customer Contact Centre standard.
- When does the 15 business day clock start?
- The timer starts the moment a complaint, request or driver enquiry is logged at the call center. The case must be conclusively resolved and the outcome communicated to the requester within 15 business days at the latest.
