Optimizing online Electric Bill Payment

Explore how we helped a large U.S. power company improve their online experience of electrical bill payment and finding payment assistance programs for residents.

For the confidentiality of this project, the company involved will be referred to as LPComp (large power company), and aspects of the deliverables shown will be redacted.

Team Members:

Ruben Ocampo - Project Lead
Amy Zasadzinski - Design Researcher

The Challenge

LPComp was experiencing a high volume of customer service calls from customers struggling to pay bills online

They also received large amount of negative survey feedback about:

Navigating the website and mobile app
Applying for Income Qualified Payment programs and payment assistance programs

How might we

optimize LPComp's website and app experiences to become the option of choice for self-serve customers?

Listening Phase

We analyzed Medalia customer feedback data with high and low net promoter scores, and conducted fifteen 1-hour, virtual, 1:1 interviews with SMEs and LPComp staff.

During this phase, we dove into customer feedback data and sorted through thousands of responses to find ones that related directly to experience with bill payment, signing up for payment and assistance programs, and relevant experiences with using the digital touchpoints. To manage time and budget, we looked at data on the extremes of the spectrum of satisfaction.

To fill in the gaps in our knowledge of the behind the scenes processes, we interviewed SMEs, CAPs Advisors, and customer service representatives from LPComp to get a full picture of the services provided and their experience of what customers have said they have struggled with the most.

What did we hear?

“I am upset because I was not notified when my CARE expired! Just looked-up my account because my recent bill is so extraordinarily high, and noticed that my "rate" did not specify CARE as I thought it would. I did not know that I had to re-apply every two years.”

- Customer

“I’d say 50% of customers calling about payment assistance have not tried self-serve first. They are either too panicked about being at risk for disconnection, or they are older and do not want to deal with the website or the app. These people want to set up payment arrangements or enroll in assistance programs over the phone.”

- Energy Advisor

“I uploaded documents weeks prior to May 7, 2023 deadline and was blindsided by email that my documents were not received. I spent most of May 8, 2023 trying to upload documents, but kept getting error about upload failed. I finally had to call customer service to get an email address to send documents as I don't have access to printer or to fax. It was a nightmarish experience.”

- Customer

We generated a summary spreadsheet of barriers to self-service that customers mentioned, along with the affected web pages associated with each barrier.

Framing Phase

After all of the interviews were completed, we communicated what we learned through a Customer Journey Map that included self-service barriers

After all of the data analysis and interviews were completed, we synthesized the customer experience into a journey map and established six overarching steps in the process. We included several barriers that prevented customers from succeeding at self-service digitally, physically, and mentally.

It was important to highlight the cyclical nature between steps, since many customers end up finding roadblocks that cause them to start over again, or they reach the end of the journey unintentionally and have to go back to the middle.

Below are examples of how we described the barriers using screenshots of the user experience and direct quotes from the interviewees. This helped highlight exact issues with the website and app that needed to be addressed.

Conclusion

As of March 2025, our design recommendations were addressed in the complete overhaul of the company website!

The process for bill payment and finding ways to enroll in assistance programs is much more intuitive for customers, and we applaud LPComp in their efforts to improve their customer experience.

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