Energy Affordability Through the BillToolkit
Program Development | Affordability | Utility | Customer Satisfaction
A new offering and an initiative to improve energy affordance for Entergy customers through a new program called BillToolkit.
Customers face significant barriers in accessing programs that support utility bill payments. Amid various daily challenges, managing energy costs remains a major burden. These customers need better support in both identifying available assistance programs and accessing resources to reduce their energy usage and expenses
My Role
CX Design, Strategy, Researcher
Targets
Electricity customers
Utility, Energy
Timeline
8 months
July 2023 - March 2024
Org
Entergy
New Orleans, USA
Tools
Elements
Qualtrics, Airtable, Usertesting.com, Lucid
Ethnography, Journey Mapping, Ideation, PESTLE risk analysis, Product roadmapping, Business case building
The Challenge
How can we help our customers to pay bills on time and reduce company's bad debt?
As Entergy's serving territory is one of the poorest in the country, customers struggle to pay bills on time leading to debt accrual.
Lack of directions to federal resources, customer behaviors and expectations leads to a gap in services and hence delayed payments, debts and poor NPS, customer satisfaction
The Insights
Identify and understand how customers manage their expenses, approach bill assistance, and identify pain points in their interactions with utilities and the ecosystem of care
Customer targetization & centricity
Identify opportunities for Entergy to better service LMI customers leveraging existing programs and services (within Entergy and the broader ecosystem) while ideating new processes and digital tools.
Leveraging existing tools and partnership
Develop a clear pathway for customers for better resource usage & a pilot in which Entergy can strategically and feasibly address opportunities to serve LMI customers.
Service clarity & process mapping
The Solution
A new customer centric program offering - BillToolkit
An Entergy-branded program which includes a new initiative called BillToolkit, a user-mobile-friendly site that provides cleaner, more streamlined information about available assistance programs and services with links to apply and marketing campaigns, social media content development and bill inserts and other flyers with impact tracking mechanisms.
Value Drivers
- LIHEAP share gains, bad debt reduction
- Self-service promotion
- Regulator sentiment and satisfaction through NPS upliftment
The Impact
Financial
An average of $431 federal funds were received by 1400 customers, making the total of $797,000 federal funds.
Bad debt reduction of an average of $71 per customer and $87,000 to the company.
Social
Overall residential NPS score went up by 18 points
More than 3 million social media impressions over a 3 month period
Strategic
The effort was one of the quickest and most impactful works for the NPS growth
The NPS uplift has set us up for the company's objective to become the Premier Utility in the country
Click below to understand my process
Explore More
