RESPONSIVE WEB EXPERIENCE

New customer onboarding

B2C • Onboarding Redesign • Service Design • User Experience Design • UX Coaching

Results

Gold Winner in International Customer Experience Awards 2021. Delivering a transparent onboarding customer experience which reduced errors across the entire process for both business & customers

Challenge

Shell Energy Retail had recently acquired a startup that provided digital services to their home energy customers.

Onboarding new customers was the business's biggest challenge due to varying energy meters across the UK, and requirements across different UK service providers, resulting in a fairly bumpy initial experience for customer onboarding with this energy company 

Scope

UX Strategy
UX Workshops
User Research
Usability Testing
Service Design
Stakeholder Management
Interaction Design
Responsive Web Design
Design System

Issue: Uninformative user experience design

The original onboarding user experience design for new customers with Shell Energy didn’t explain what was going to happen, when, how or even provide any of the details which customers may require during the process

Issue: Poor customer feedback

This poor user experience was reflected in the Net Promoter Score provided by Shell Customers going through the original onboarding experience

Issue: Internal management of customer issues

Another major issue was how the business was managing the errors arising from customers during the onboarding process. It was challenging for teams to track customers and also for employees to understand the specific issues that required them to correct with the coding system in place

Issue: Negative online feedback

Issues were being reflected externally on review sites online that others can easily access and view. Here I reviewed opinions to identify themes of problems

Issue: Stronger competitor offering

With growing competition in the sector, it was important to understand what those leading were doing differently to Shell Energy and how the team could utilise learnings

Insight: Competitor comparisons

Utilising the UK Which Customer survey review of the top energy providers I investigated what it was that made the top three the best rated by customers and compared them to how Shell Energy was currently performing

Team collaboration: Journey mapping the experience

The S&S team of consultants I was partnered with gathered the team with backing from senior management to align the team around the specifics of the customer experience and the different challenges across internal departments. This customer journey map the team created lead the way for our development and work initiatives

Team collaboration: Setting direction & focus

Mapping the customer journey we were then able to review the different challenges and problems across the experience and as a team, together the team decided the direction and specifics of our approach, the problems we want to address and the most important challenges to tackle

Team collaboration: Goal setting

Later the team with the support of our lead product strategist were able to create OKRs to report to the business and hold themselves accountable for work and actions taken during the development work for improving Shell Energy’s customer onboarding processes

Team building customer empathy

One of the internal customer support team suggested the team attempt to locate our own energy meters to better understand the challenge that most customers experience when asked for particular details. I filmed myself and the team followed which really opened our eyes to the challenge at hand

Meters hidden behind cupboards & located in hard to reach locations

What sounds like a simple task and something that all Shell Energy customers were required to do was far from straightforward. We found meters outside, in sheds, hidden in cupboards that were hard to reach, some obscured by other furniture, and usually requiring considerable effort

Meters were hidden behind household objects, in dark places often tough to see

Not only were meters tough to physically locate but there were also some members of the team with them hidden away behind household appliances and in the dark so would require torches to view

Meters even located in hard-to-reach places, some even needed step ladders to reach

We also found meters in cupboards up high requiring climbing to gain access and this wasn't the only challenge, once located we all wondered which were the correct numbers to feedback to the onboarding team

Customer interviews & our insights

After the team's investigation and many loooooooong conversations about getting to speak directly to customers. There were many concerns over GDPR we eventually were given the all-clear for customer interviews

The insights allowed us to truly understand the challenges for new customers, and the specifics of their real-world context and it even provided an opportunity to start copywriting in a friendly language aligned with users' actual spoken word rather than the robotic corporate copy currently used

Customer bills: Shell Energy & other service providers

Another challenge that was highlighted was finding and locating the numbers from bills, with most providers having different bill layouts and occasionally labelling digits differently we needed to make sure all options were covered within our digital experience to support customers with troubleshooting for themselves

Wireframing core onboarding journey

We broke the journey into core elements which provided customers details supporting them with self-checks and a separate progression tracker which provided sight of upcoming events and the current status of their onboarding

Alternatives & troubleshooting journeys

Edge case journeys

Onboarding customer details

We discovered there was major confusion between customers and support teams when it came to knowing where people were in their journey and finding the required details, here we made everything visible to avoid bill shock or incorrect details being submitted

Onboarding customer progression tracker: Desktop experience

The progression tracker clearly displays all the steps in the process. With the entire team onboard from the beginning dev teams aligned the back-end system of processes so this experience became a possibility where it wasn’t previously

Onboarding customer progression tracker: Mobile experience

Here you can see details of the current step available and displayed as a customer makes their way through the complex process of switching energy providers, providing an automated up to date status for customers without the need for customer support calls

Shell Energy's switch screen

The welcome screen is very focused and simple to allow customers to see clearly what is ahead via the progression tracker and also we clearly labelled the option to cancel the switch, something customers had previous complained about being difficult to locate and request

Your switch tracker

One click away from the main page we provided customers clear sight of all the stages to onboard with Shell Energy before the switch is complete and sight of their current status & position 

Confirm your direct debit

Once the direct debit mandate had been released we sent an email confirmation and also informed customers within the online experience as an additional reminder & prompt

Full details of your direct debit

Once confirmed by the customer and approval has been granted via their bank or building society we supplied an overview of all relevant details. This helped to fix a number of issues coming through from the original experience and prompted customers if anything had been incorrectly submitted

Details of your switch to Shell Energy

As customers neared the end of the process they could see all of their switch details clearly articulated within the switch dashboard.

Any meter numbers submitted or collected from previous service suppliers, supporting customer support and enabling customers to troubleshoot challenges or incorrect entries that often happen via previous provider entries.

This approach allowed the team to reduce another set of errors arising during the switching process for new customers to Shell Energy

Error handling: Business dashboard

As part of the project, the internal analytics team did an incredible job of troubleshooting data sources, aligning with the development team and switch process to develop this registration errors dashboard, supporting the team to get ahead of problems and deliver on the OKRs and report back into the business regarding progress