Challenge
Our client was one of the largest gas and electricity providers that lacked well-functioning digital touchpoints for its retail customers. A large public sector organisation currently undergoing a merger, they are dedicated to transforming itself into a modern market leader that meets 21st century needs. We were commissioned to understand and re-shape how the company interacts with its customers through its digital customer care channels (currently consisting of 2 customer portals and 2 applications, all legacy items). With the active support of the client's team, we were asked to conduct in-depth research on the needs of present and future portal users, as well as to lay the foundations for the new digital interfaces and the underlying service processes and strategies.
Solution
Based on a thorough audit of present interfaces, as well as an ethnographic research into user needs, we identified 5 personas with different needs profiles, along with key design principles and the main functional building blocks for the future platform. Next, we took a closer look at present offerings and created a detailed plan for how the current functionalities, user profiles and service processes should form one single platform in the future.
We analysed channel usage data, conducted a number of stakeholder and user interviews in addition to facilitating several co-creation workshops with the client's team. This allowed us to establish the main information architecture of the solution and thereafter create a high-level functional specification for the new platform.
Finally we prepared a detailed omni-channel process flow for the most important customer interaction processes.
Results
We established a structural and functional framework for a new, unified customer portal that caters for the diverse needs of customers, while remaining feasible within our client's technical constraints. Isobar also delivered an in-depth analysis of needs and possibilities to ground our design, as well as strategic recommendations on key user interactions.
TV and Radio Common Broadcasting
Vodafone
Strategic design for digital customer care
Transforming digital customer interactions by designing a new customer portal for a major public utilities provider
Increasing engagement with digital banking
Erste Bank
Global digital consolidation and relaunch
MTU/Rolls-Royce Power Systems