RE-IMAGINING THE E.ON BILLING JOURNEY

Taking a Human Centred Design Approach to improving the billing experience for E.ON’s SME customers

MY ROLE
I was the Lead Experience Design on this project and worked closely with the Senior Strategist to deliver the work for the client. I advised on the project process, how the Agile sprints would breakdown and what methodology we would use to gain insights.

THE APPROACHI created a project plan that followed a HCD methodology which started with discovery interviews and research, defining the areas to focus on, developing potential solutions and prototype delivery.

THE CHALLENGEE.ON had identified the billing journey for small and medium business customers as one with a large potential for improvement. A large proportion of SME calls to the E.ON call centre were regarding billing issues or queries. 40% of total calls could be resolved by the customer using the customer self serve portal online (CSS). Our challenge for this project was to identify the customer pain points in the journey and find solutions that would encourage CSS usage and thus result in reduced cost to serve for the E.ON business.

The goal of our stakeholder research was to understand the business challenges with the billing journey. It was clear that the overiding concern of the business was the cost to serve each customer. E.ON had a self serve platform that was underused with customers preferring to call the call centre. A large proportion of the calls were for billing based enquiries due to perceived inaccurate bills, questions about the bills and payments

40% SME call demand is for basic queries that could be done via CSS
(vs only 10-15% for Residential)

Only 45% bills paid digitally
(vs over 80% in Residential)

Digital CSS functionality to be optimised for top demand drivers
(5 clicks to get copy of latest bill)

STAKEHOLDER RESEARCH

CUSTOMER RESEARCH

EXPERIENCE PRINCIPLES

VISION = ALL PRINCIPLES WORKING TOGETHER

IDEATION

“Bills seem to run themselves, and I get a bill that makes sense with usable insight. Perfect!”

“it says click here if you are having trouble with your bill but it's all gobbledegook and I can't even read it.”

“I have no idea how much my bill might be or how to make my business more efficient - can you help translate kwh and forecast it?”

“It says ‘day and night’ but the shop is closed at night so that doesn’t make sense”

“Thought I was on a fixed rate and now it looks like I'm on a variable rate. I feel stupid.”

Our customer research was done to ensure we balanced the voice of the business with the voice of the customer and that our ideas had real impact and addressed the customer issues. We asked the customer about all aspects of billing with E.ON which covered preparing for their first bill, the accuracy of the bills and their understanding of their content the bills contained.

Once we had a good understanding of the pain points of the customers we landed on four key experience principles to underpin and guide all of our ideas.

We focused our ideation session around the key phases in the journey causing the most pain to customers and the business. The key themes we ideated on were:

Once we had finished ideation we reviewed the ideas against the gaols of the project and experience principles. The ideas ranged from simple communications, innovative ideas and app features. They were then mapped against the journey to create a new experience. The experience map below displays the ideas from a customer point of view and was a great way to bring the ideas to life for the client.

The image below show a close up of the experience map and some of the content contained.

CREATING A NEW EXPERIENCE MAP

SHORTLISTING IDEAS TO GET BACKING FROM THE BOARD

From the ideas we created three scenarios that addressed various goals and customer pain points and each addressed a different part of the journey. These scenarios contained a number of small and large ideas all working together towards a common goal.

Once the client was happy with the ideas and the scenarios used to present them, I set about creating wireframes of all the touch points and interactions. I worked with the UI designer to create prototypes of the key experiences to bring the work to life.

BRINGING THE IDEAS TO LIFE

How can we ensure customers receive an accurate first bill

How can we increase the understanding of the bill

How can we drive customers to their online account

Based on everything we learned I mapped out the existing journey to ensure we fully understood the current state of play. The image below shows a small portion of the overall journey.

MAPPING THE EXISTING JOURNEY

I understand the billing information and how it has been created. And I can easily do what complete any tasks.

Everything in my business runs on a schedule, including my energy. I know where I am in the cycle and what to expect.

Both functional and added value proactive information on the bill is relevant to my business.

Amount is right and looks right. Things are done on time. All my information is correctly displayed everywhere.

SCENARIO 1

Showcase how promoting the app and meter readings in an estimated printed bill can drive CSS engagement, more accurate bills and reduce call centre demand.

KEY IDEAS

Redesign of the paper bill
to make it clearer and promote Smart meters and the CSS experience

New app/sms notifications to encourage meter readings and Smart meter uptake

KEY IDEAS

Introduce new comms
to promote the benefits of meter readings

Improve online bill experience
to give customers more data and insights

Showcase how reviewing the billing communications can encourage meter readings and engagement with a more interactive online version of the bill.

Showcase the benefits of being a Smart Meter customer – with a more personal billing experience as well as integration with their accounting software.

SCENARIO 2

SCENARIO 3

KEY IDEAS

Choosing payment dates
to allow CSS customers to choose a direct debit date that suits them

Integration with accounting software
to make accounting easier for SME's

This prototype shows the interactive version of the bill. If there is an area the user doesn't understand they are able to tap and reveal explanations.

They can also view historical usage and billing information as well as insights to help them be more economical.