Eneco

Metering services

 

Eneco, with 2.1 million customers, is the second-largest energy supplier in the Netherlands. For years, Eneco has been working on transitioning to green energy, and now it's time for their digital communications to align with this mission.

UX LEAD USER FLOW INTERACTION DESIGN WIREFRAMES

Reduce the dropout rate for submitting meter readings by 50%.

As a Freelance UX designer, I was asked by Dept to help Eneco with their digital transition. The transition was divided into three Scrum teams: the brand experience team, the sales team, and the service team. Our team was responsible for the service part, which included all complex customer-facing applications. During my time at Eneco, we tackled three projects: submitting meter readings, login/registration, and the concept for the My Eneco environment. This portfolio item focuses on the submission of meter readings.

Project goal

Submitting meter readings, a service that 500,000 customers use annually, was not optimal. For 14% of the customers, the process of submitting meter readings was so problematic that they couldn't complete it and ended up calling customer service. Our task was to improve the usability of this process and reduce the dropout rate to 7%.

My role

During my time at Eneco, I was responsible for the user experience within the services team. I ensured alignment with the other teams, gathered the right input from stakeholders, worked on on user journeys, user flows, wireframes, and prototypes, and lead Ilayda Küçükosmanoglu ( junior UX Designer).

full-result

Een voorbeeld van de resultaatpagina. Visual design door Diederick Weijschede

UX Design

To reduce the dropout rate by 50%, we had to take drastic steps to improve the current process. I've established three UX principles to guide us throughout this project:

  1. Guide the Customer: Provide clear and straightforward instructions to lead the customer through each step of the process.
  2. Show Only Relevant Information Smartly: Display only the necessary information in an intelligent manner to avoid overwhelming the customer.
  3. Provide Clear Results and Show Next Steps: Ensure the outcome is clearly communicated and provide the customer with the next steps they need to take.

These principles were the foundation of our approach to enhance the user experience for submitting meter readings.

A complex back-end

Meter readings are submitted in many different situations, all of which follow the same process. We inventoried the various situations and explored the back-end capabilities to segment these situations.

Eneco-meterstanden-flow-v5

Due to the many different situations in which meter readings are submitted, the user flow quickly became complex.

A step-by-step process

During user research, we discovered that customers often found submitting meter readings complex. To address this, we chose a step-by-step concept where only one meter reading is requested at a time. This approach made the process much less overwhelming and allowed us to offer assistance for each type of meter and reading.

Meterstand 04.1b

Wireframe for Step-by-Step Meter Reading Submission

Relevant help when needed

In the old process, assistance for finding the correct meter and reading was bundled together. Customers with analog and digital meters received the same instructions for identifying the meter, despite the significant visual differences between them. By working closely with Eneco's meter reading specialists, we discovered that we could identify the type of meter. This allowed us to personalize the assistance with images of the specific meter and provide tailored help for reading the meter correctly.

analoge meter
digitale meter

The Difference Between Customers with an Analog Electricity Meter and Customers with a Digital Electricity Meter
Visual design by  Diederick Weijschede

Personalised next steps

 Because meter readings are submitted in various situations (annually or, for example, during a move), the results and next steps differ for all customers. By making smart use of real-time calculations from the back-end, we were able to display a fully dynamic results page. This allowed us to change the page for each situation and offer relevant options based on the annual statement, such as a payment plan or a completely different page during a move.

Wireframes of personalised results and next steps

As a freelance User Experience Designer, I serve as the link between stakeholders, development, and end-users. Armed with personas, user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and SEO knowledge, I ensure that user needs are uncovered and that they can easily achieve their goals.

Ruben Vandenbussche
Freelance UX Designer

+316 24 12 03 04
ruben@uxrv.nl

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