— The Problem
A lack of strategy was negatively impacting British Gas customers in debt.
Following a technical migration, the experience for customers in debt became difficult and confusing. Prior business decisions were made without a clear strategy, which led to disjointed experiences for vulnerable customers trying get help when they needed it the most. Consequently, this not only affected customers, but prevented the business from reaching their goals.
Goals
• Define a strategy to meet business goal of increased debt recovered YoY.
• Increase conversion rate of debt customers to repay internally (28 days).
• Reduce operational spending and pressure on contact and Debt Collection Agencies.
• Optimise the current struggling to pay journeys from entry points across the British Gas site.
• Increase conversion rate of debt customers to repay internally (28 days).
• Reduce operational spending and pressure on contact and Debt Collection Agencies.
• Optimise the current struggling to pay journeys from entry points across the British Gas site.
My role
• Facilitated stakeholder sessions with multiple teams to drive alignment.
• Conducted lean research to rapidly uncover pain points and problems.
• Proposed short and long-term solutions towards building a customer debt strategy.
• Conducted lean research to rapidly uncover pain points and problems.
• Proposed short and long-term solutions towards building a customer debt strategy.
A redesign for one of the short-term solutions to deliver slices of value while working on the larger picture.
Solving one problem, revealed another.
When I joined the debt team at British Gas, my initial focus was to propose improvements to the "Help & Support" section of the website in relation to its debt content and journeys. The business wanted to move towards a self-serve concept, to help reach an operational objective of contact reduction. It wasn't until I dug into the debt experience, that a wider strategic problem was identified.
Mapping the current experience.
The original scope was focused on identifying quick wins. So, applying a lean lens, I started with rapid research to build a picture of the current landscape. The research included:
• Session replays
• Journey analysis
• Competitor analysis
• Heuristics evaluation
• Stakeholder interviews
• Journey analysis
• Competitor analysis
• Heuristics evaluation
• Stakeholder interviews
The existing customer journey at a high-level: showing a lack of funnelling and confusing entry points.
Initial findings
3 main themes were revealed from the research:
1. Confusing and circular journeys
Content and CTAs were duplicated across the Help & Support section. Links looped users back to where they started or to dead-ends, creating circular and unclear paths.
Content and CTAs were duplicated across the Help & Support section. Links looped users back to where they started or to dead-ends, creating circular and unclear paths.
2. Missed opportunities to signpost
Key entry points like a customer's account, lacked clear CTAs to Help & Support content. As a result, struggling customers often missed the support available to them.
Key entry points like a customer's account, lacked clear CTAs to Help & Support content. As a result, struggling customers often missed the support available to them.
3. Too much pressure on the customer
Content offered little tailored guidance, leaving vulnerable customers to figure out what applied to them. This added cognitive load at an already stressful time, led to disengagement.
Content offered little tailored guidance, leaving vulnerable customers to figure out what applied to them. This added cognitive load at an already stressful time, led to disengagement.
To align the Product Owners and stakeholders on next steps, I created an opportunity tree which communicated the ideas, grouped by short, mid, to long-term impact.
Opportunity tree outlining solutions and explorations to reach objectives.
Three key opportunities emerged:
Short-term: Help customers find what they need
Quick, low-risk front-end changes to improve visibility of support and gently nudge users in the right direction.
Quick, low-risk front-end changes to improve visibility of support and gently nudge users in the right direction.
Mid-term: Tailor the experience
Since most users were signed in, there was an opportunity to tailor content based on account data. This required some customer validation and light engineering effort.
Since most users were signed in, there was an opportunity to tailor content based on account data. This required some customer validation and light engineering effort.
Long-term: Provide a personalised recommendation
To truly reduce friction and move to self-serve, the hypothesis was to provide users with a personalised debt recovery plan based on their specific situation. As a high-risk idea, this would take more planning and testing.
To truly reduce friction and move to self-serve, the hypothesis was to provide users with a personalised debt recovery plan based on their specific situation. As a high-risk idea, this would take more planning and testing.
— Hypothesis
Self-serve, by serving customers.
The proposed hypothesis, was to move towards a self-serve strategy focused on providing personalised recommendations based on a customer's specific situation. This minimises the the need to contact British Gas - thereby meeting the operational goal of reducing contact while maximising the debt recovered. The questions and assumptions left to validate were:
• Would self-serve and personalisation meet the needs of customers?
• Can we see the self-serve strategy reducing contact?
• In what way does self-serve not meet the needs of customers?
• Can we see the self-serve strategy reducing contact?
• In what way does self-serve not meet the needs of customers?
It was agreed to implement the low-risk short-term solutions, while the mid to long-term ideas would be ran as parallel projects to assess desirability and feasibility. Working with the Product Owner and Analyst, we mapped out a strategic timeline to support the squad's roadmap.
Strategic timeline for how to iteratively test and reach the long-term vision, facilitated with design thinking.
My hypothesis was quickly disproven.
While this piece of work was happening, I became involved in a couple of user interviews for a new unreleased feature, which had entry points into the debt experience. Those user insights answered an early and crucial assumption about the self-serve strategy: the strategy does not account for the different types of user groups within the debt cohort.
1. Some customers in debt would prefer to bury their head in the sand.
2. Some customers want help, but would prefer not to speak to someone about their debt.
3. Some customers would prefer a human approach, and know they can speak to someone.
2. Some customers want help, but would prefer not to speak to someone about their debt.
3. Some customers would prefer a human approach, and know they can speak to someone.
Guiding the business
The insights revealed that the self-serve approach would only meet the needs of one user group, meaning it wouldn’t fully support the goal of maximising debt recovery. As a result, the self-serve strategy was misaligned with the broader business objectives.
After highlighting this to my Lead Designer, it was agreed that further research and a wider realignment effort was needed to help guide the business towards a more effective debt strategy.
Proposed debt funnel strategy using a conversion model to reach goal.
Re-imagining debt at British Gas.
From continued conversations with other stakeholders, we agreed to plan a workshop to re-define and understand what a more appropriate debt strategy should be. The workshop aimed to coordinate research and clarify remaining assumptions that still needed to be answered.
The planned outcome of the workshop was to:
• Identify research required to understand the remaining debt user groups
• The needs of each user groups
• How success will be defined at feature, product and business level
• The scope and constraints for each step of the funnel
• The needs of each user groups
• How success will be defined at feature, product and business level
• The scope and constraints for each step of the funnel
A combined-strategy looked likely.
The outcomes from this work were intended to inform the wider debt strategy, with early findings pointing toward the need for a more combined approach to meet both customer needs and business goals. The plan was to present these insights to senior stakeholders to guide the business towards a customer-centric approach.
Although I wasn’t able to see the strategy through to its next stage, I’m proud that the early groundwork helped highlight some of the gaps to the business' current approach, and set the direction for a more considered solution.