uxdesignsteve

British Gas | B2C

In card editing

Simple animation to show proof of concept

Reducing calls

Book an engineer

OVERVIEW

At a time of crucial Digital Transformation for BG the business's main ask of the Product teams was to reduce calls into the call center. At this time there were 25k calls each month attributed to the Book an Engineer online journey. The call data (reasons for calls) was unfortunately only 10% accurate.


TEAM

  • Working closely with the Product Owner we started looking at some key areas of the journey that we thought could be deemed ambiguous and cause friction. By listening to live and recorded calls, we were able to determine whether our assumptions were correct. This marked the beginning of a task that focused mainly on the display and clarity of written content.

USER PAIN POINT

I'm unable to book my annual boiler service with British Gas online because the website indicates that it's not due yet, even though I had it around this time last year (similar to a car's annual service). I'll have to call Customer Services to enquire. Unfortunately, the setup and capacity of British Gas Engineers doesn't allow for this, due to factors such as priority calls and bad weather.


BUSINESS NEED

Eliminating/reducing a customers' propensity to call when they want to find out when they can book their annual service. Reducing British Gas engineers 'Cost To Serve' by reducing calls.


Your next service visit messaging – As is


Hypothesis: The current messaging, 'Your service visit is not due’ is ambiguous. Can we offer customers more information to reduce the propensity to call?

Your next service visit messaging hover


‘Find out more’ hover messaging for further clarification and explanation.

Your next service visit messaging – To be v1


Plain messaging proved to be hard to pick out key information, leaving users unclear on what their next steps would be. The majority said they would call for further information.

Test 1: 6/7 participants said they'd call BG Call Centre

Your next service visit messaging more info overlayTo be v2


A continuation of the ‘We’ll be in touch…' theme to emphasise this crucial point and the inclusion of messaging hierarchy with subheadings, bullet points and a more impactful 'There’s no need to call us’.

Test 2: 3/7 participants said they'd call BG Call Centre

Your next service visit messaging more info overlayTo be v3


Addition of ‘Where we can, we’ll service your…', as we don’t want to disappoint customers or give them the wrong expectation. Defining the start and end date of the contract and adding in 'There’s no need to call’ messaging.

Test 3: 4/7 participants said they'd call BG Call Centre

Your next service visit messaging more info overlay – To be v4


Adding further clarity to the heading from what we learnt in the final testing session.

Test 4: 1/7 participants said they'd call BG Call Centre

Project outcome

Book an engineer

Reducing engineer call outs

Help to restart your boiler

OVERVIEW

This project was born out of taking a small piece of intel and turning it into a potentially valuable journey disruption that could keep customers warm (potentially save lives too) and reduce the need for a large percentage of engineer callouts (reduce cost to serve for the Business).


Intel: “Around 40% of boiler faults are corrected by a simple reset”.



TEAM

Working closely with the BA and armed with a boiler manufacturer/model customer dataset, we engaged in conversations around what an MVP could and should look like.


We set about defining and sketching out what percentage of the customer base we were comfortable covering and able to deliver in a timely fashion with an MVP.


PAIN POINT

  • Customers can wait weeks/months for an engineer. When in reality over 40% of boiler faults can be resolved by a simple reset.


BUSINESS NEED

  • Free up appointment space for those who are in real need. Engineers more available for high priorty customers.


Ideation


Ideas for impactful disruptive messaging within the book an engineer journey.

User base coverage for the MVP


Fleshing out what the MVP could like:


1. What percentage of boiler manufacturers and model numbers should we cover for the first release?


2. What do the percentages mean for the number of boilers we can help to reset for our user base?


The MVP on paper

Appetite testing

Help to restart your boiler

Appetite test – Do our users want this, will they and can they use it in practicice?


The Help & Advice product team were wanting to run a test on their new ‘Contextual Help’ component. Working with them, we were able to get their component tested within our journey.


At the same time we gathered vital analytics for the appetite for our proposed ‘Boiler reset’ idea. The inter team collaboration, proved to be a great success for both parties.

Help to reset your boiler


When selecting a boiler repair a user will have the option of help to reset. Our aim is to solve a good percentage of boiler faults without the need for an engineer call out.


MVP to cover 19% of users boilers.


The boiler list includes the 12 most common boilers amongst our customer base.


Worcester boiler model example


Boiler diagram with reset instructions and feedback component for continuous improvement.


Glow worm boiler example


Boiler diagram with reset instructions and feedback component for continuous improvement loop.