Designing a mobile app that customers love to use.

Swiping left to right allows customers to view the details and usage of their power, broadband and gas services with Trustpower. Each service includes a simple animation to highlight the key detail.

Connecting New Zealanders.

Most people don’t spend much time thinking about their utilities. Whether it’s getting connected, managing their account, or paying a bill, they expect the experience to be effortless, like opening a door or switching on a light.

At the same time, customers have much greater expectations from their providers, particularly when it comes to joining, managing services and being able to self-serve through digital channels.

As one of New Zealand’s largest energy and telecommunication companies, Trustpower supplies electricity to over 280,000 customers nationwide.

With a strong mandate to improve the lives of the people in the communities they serve, Trustpower set out to explore this changing world and find out what their customers were really looking for in a utility company.

The app provides a seamless bill-paying experience ensuring customers are able to receive early payment rewards through notifications and multiple payment options from inside the app.

Getting the brief right.

Trustpower brought us onboard early in the process to help them better understand the needs, motivations and behaviours of their customers in order to design the most appropriate digital experience. 

Design research and customer insight.

Customers will often tell you one thing, but will be thinking and feeling something else entirely. To dig beneath the surface and understand their core motivations and mindsets, we conducted in depth interviews with a number of Trustpower customers to find out which digital features would resonate with their expectations. Some key patterns around their understanding and use of digital technology emerged.

People need options for managing their utilities

From those who prefer the tangibility of a paper bill and the security of a contract, to those who pay their bills on the go and don’t want to be locked into an ongoing commitment, one thing was clear: people have different needs, and to provide a great experience, we needed to offer a variety of solutions.

Customer experience is fragile 

Companies need to earn customer trust — but they also need to retain it. By offering deals to new customers, existing customers might feel slighted. Loyalty should be recognised. 

Our research also found that companies need to be particularly careful around how much information they ask for — and always explain why they’re asking.

Real-time usage data is essential

With smart meters a common feature in most homes, many customers expect real-time information about their usage, so they can better control their costs, spot problems early on, and adjust their lifestyle if needed.

The experience of the app was designed around not all customers having all services – power, gas and broadband with Trustpower. The framework ensured that whatever the combination of services a customer might have — the experience would be the same. This also allowed for future enhancement or addition of services such as onboarding and order tracking.

A delightful user experience.

Insight suggested that viewing your outstanding bill every time you opened the app would potentially lead to negative sentiment – therefore an app experience that would allow emphasis to be placed on the value delivered by Trustpower was prioritised. Your bill details although presented secondary in the hierarchy of the app – are still obvious to view, access and action.

To align with the Trustpower Brand Design System a simple colour gradient animation was included as part of the app development.

We worked with Trustpower and its app development partner to generate a robust design system to enable ongoing enhancements.

An integrated approach to delivery.

We worked closely with Trustpower’s product team and development partner to provide insight, design expertise and support throughout the build and delivery process.

As part of a virtual, cross-functional team, we participated in sprint planning, provided production assets for development, collaborated with the development squad to generate new assets, and reviewed and tested features.

Results in first 6 months.

• 10% Customer uptake within the first 6 months of App downloads (per month as a proportion of customers)

• Prevented an estimated 5000 calls to the contact centre per month  

• 50% Increase Active users and engagement (compared to customers on the website)

• 30% Increase Bills paid (compared proportionally to customers completing on the website)

• 40% Increase New payment types set up