Improving Customer Satisfaction through Service Design
XCELab | Xcel Energy | 2023
Challenge
Xcel Energy’s J.D. Power Electric Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction score had been decreasing since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2022. Our team was tasked with addressing the factors negatively impacting the scores by taking a systemic view of the overarching customer experience and identifying opportunities for sustaining long-term satisfaction (vs. short-term fixes).
Phase One: Customer Experience Mapping
At the start of this work, a single, comprehensive, end-to-end view of the residential customer experience did not exist at Xcel Energy. My team and I engaged in a 12-week ethnographic research approach to understand the activities, needs, and mindsets of our current customers.
We completed a total of 22 in-depth customer interviews across Xcel Energy’s service areas (MN, WI, ND, SD, MI, CO, NM, TX)
11 in-home interviews
11 video interviews
Each interview included a review of a simplified, hypothesized customer journey and a home tour (in-homes only). We observed many similarities but also nuances in how customers thought about and managed the energy in their homes and in their lives.
Outcomes
Creation of an end-to-end customer journey map for the resident electric customer from “cradle to grave”
Development of four archetypes to describe the most prominent mindsets of residential electric customers when it comes to energy management and usage
Selection of prioritized “sub-journeys” across the end-to-end customer experience for further research and exploration.
Phase Two: Mapping the Employee Experience
Partnering with Rally Room leadership, XCELab designed a series of eight working sessions aligned with six ‘sub-journeys’ across the customer experience.
Session 1: Customer Journey Alignment (in-person)
Sessions 2-7: Sub-Journey Deep Dives + Opportunity Identification (virtual)
Session 8: Opportunity Prioritization and Action Planning (virtual)
Each working session included a group of multi-disciplinary stakeholders who were directly responsible for the delivery of the sub-journey experience (ex: bill pay, outage, customer service, etc.).
Together these stakeholders mapped out the internal processes needed to deliver the experience and identified pain points and possible opportunity areas for focus in 2024.
In the final session, the journey leads – the individuals who will be responsible for leading improvements across their assigned sub-journey – worked together to prioritize an over-arching strategy for customer satisfaction and then created individual action plans.
Outcomes
Grounding and alignment in a single overarching customer experience (journey) to use for future work.
Identification of “design criteria” to help springboard ideation and potential customer-facing solutions.
Better understanding of the key sub-journeys along the customer experience and how we are currently delivering them.
Action plans for improving the customer experience within the prioritized sub-journeys
