Buy vs build: how to keep your customer satisfied

In our previous article, we shared how we approached the buy versus build decision at Road. Although we began with an existing solution, we soon shifted toward developing our own platform, gaining valuable insight into the complexities and trade-offs that come with that choice.

It quickly became clear what the market lacked: a universal platform that could seamlessly connect installers and end-users. To address this gap, we launched E-Flux by Road, an all-in-one solution designed for businesses and charge point operators seeking simple, reliable, and scalable charge station management. For organisations interested in integrating their own proposition within an existing market we introduced Road Private Label, a fully customisable platform tailored for a short time-to-market period.

Many of our customers are large-scale operators who rely on their own customer relationships to succeed. Their demand for scalability, consistent brand experience, and seamless user journeys has been central to our product development. At the heart of everything we build is a commitment to delivering a smooth, intuitive platform that reflects their operational and strategic needs.

Things to consider when building

Building gives you freedom, but it also means taking full responsibility for the outcome. At Road, we have seen how even a minor flaw in system logic can cause a major disruption. And it’s not just a bug: it’s a driver whose car does not charge on their way to the airport, a support team under pressure trying to answer 100 people waiting in line with just the two of them, and a reputation dented before you have even begun. One thing to understand about building is that it takes time. This means you will not be able to offer full functionality right away and many mistakes are not discovered until after they have been made. It also means you will encounter many situations where you have to give your customer an answer that will leave them unsatisfied. In the early days, we gathered feedback from our customers themselves, but this brings on many risks. Your product has to be good enough for them to stick around while you go through the process of trial and error.

It is about more than clean code. It’s about uptime at 2:00 AM when your lead developer is unreachable. It's about how fast you recover, how you communicate, and how well your support team is prepared to respond. Every misstep early on gets amplified, and the internet does not forget.

Now imagine a scenario where a self-built backend fails at the point of connection. Your platform breaks. The car does not charge. And this can be something completely outside of your own control. When we first started, our software vendor had everything stored at one location, which was fine, until the place caught fire, leaving our systems down for an entire day. That is all your customer remembers. What seems like a small failure, whether you had control over it or not, can cascade into user frustration, loss of trust, and long-term reputational damage.

The complexity deepens when operating across multiple markets. Legal and regulatory compliance must be addressed on a country-by-country basis. What holds in the Netherlands may not apply in Germany, Belgium, or France. Differences in VAT handling, energy tariffs, and consumer protections all require ongoing attention. Privacy legislation adds another layer, requiring careful handling of personal data, and these requirements are not static. A platform that is not built to adapt quickly will struggle to remain compliant with VAT, payment terminals, legal contracts, GDPR, money transfers and many more aspects to consider.

Fraud is another dimension often underestimated. Building your own platform means you’re responsible for anticipating every possible vulnerability, from cloned RFID cards and session spoofing to more sophisticated attempts to exploit APIs or firmware gaps. Failing to secure any of these weak points exposes both your customers and your reputation.

Payments and billing present yet another critical area. Invoicing needs to be correct, timely, and regionally compliant. Whether you’re serving a fleet operator, a real estate manager, or a private individual, the expectation is that billing works flawlessly across different pricing models, taxes, and usage patterns. A miscalculation in VAT or a failure to reflect dynamic pricing can quickly erode customer confidence.

Buy or build: what works best for your intended customer

Customer satisfaction is not a feature – it’s an outcome. And delivering it takes more than tech. Before your product even launches, you’ll need hours dedicated to help content, onboarding flows, and support team training. You will need escalation paths, tone of voice guidelines, and a plan for the first bad review.

If you decide on buying a well-rounded platform, the decision comes with a lot of benefits. Everything around onboarding, signup flows, and support platforms are already in place after many stages of trial and error, so you get to skip the trial and error phase. You are likely not the first buyer, so there is a proven record of failures and successes.

We are the first ones to understand how building can create a lot of opportunities for your intended customer as well. When you do decide to build, you have to be prepared for the trial and error phase which will entail many failures at first. Naturally, you do learn from this but it takes a while to build a sophisticated onboarding flow. If you are sure you know what you are doing and what you want to achieve with your product, building - while taking everything into account - can result in something great. Think of an outpour of 5-star reviews, a blooming business, and something you can be genuinely proud of after years of hard work. As long as you make sure to listen to your most important asset: your customer. Send out surveys, ask them how you can improve, and listen to what they have to say.

Cost to deliver customer satisfaction: time to market

One thing to prepare for is trial and error, and ideally, you encounter these before going live. If you don’t, there’s not just the unsatisfied customer who cannot charge their car at 2:00 AM on a Sunday. You will also be dealing with lingering effects that you might not be able to get out of. In the age of the internet, it is nearly impossible to make a mistake that is not documented somewhere. This raises the question: who is going to want to use your product if the initial reviews are negative? A lesson from Road here is: make sure you have customer support up and running before you go live. Our customers are, and always have been, our first priority. So, with that, invest in some boxes of fine chocolate, send them some nice flowers, and have a discount code ready for when things do unexpectedly go awry.