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How mobile self-service put everyday energy tasks in customers’ hands.
A mobile app gave millions of British Gas customers a faster way to manage their energy accounts themselves.
value of card payments
pay as you go top-ups
reduction in call volume
British Gas, a subsidiary of Centrica, serves millions of homes across the United Kingdom, but many everyday account tasks still pushed customers toward the phone. Paying a bill, checking energy use or booking a repair could mean calling for help, adding friction for customers and pressure on contact centers.
British Gas worked with Publicis Sapient to empower customers with the ability to take care of many of those tasks themselves. A new mobile experience made it easier to manage an energy account from anywhere, shifting routine interactions to digital channels while giving customers more control over how and when they engaged with their energy provider.
British Gas has a 200-year heritage as a trusted brand providing in-home repair and maintenance services, insurance and smart connected home solutions alongside gas and electricity. But the U.K.’s residential energy market is radically changing. Digitally native entrants are challenging large, traditional energy players, while the U.K. government’s default tariff cap impacts margins. The imperative is clear—transform the customer experience, simplify journeys and enable digital technologies to drive efficiency, choice and new products and services.
Publicis Sapient and British Gas formed dedicated, integrated teams with key experts from across the U.K. Home business—SAP, billing, home service, smart data, connected home and marketing. The teams worked to optimize the existing agile capability by focusing key service design sprints on the customer, challenging existing processes and addressing more than 200 pain points. They explored not only the way users engaged but also how they engaged.
In just 82 days the cross-discipline teams delivered a minimum viable product (MVP) of the new customer app. On a monthly basis, the teams rolled out new updates, including a two-click tariff change, Apple and Google Pay (a first for an app in the U.K. energy market), real-time 10-second smart meter data visualization and home-boiler service appointment booking and management.
With over two million downloads, the app has significantly impacted digital customer journeys across the enterprise with more than 55 percent of all customer interactions now made through digital channels, and call volumes dropping by 4.3m, or 15%. What’s more, the Energy Saving Trust Group heralded the app as a “standout” and “arguably the best of the energy supplier apps.”
The British Gas teams, coached by Publicis Sapient to develop an agile delivery mind-set, continue to build on the app’s success by applying the agile learnings to their broader digital transformation.
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I’m delighted that we partnered with Publicis Sapient to build out a step change in the mobile app experience for our customers. This work has driven real momentum on our broader digital transformation program.
"— Jon White
Head of Digital Transformation, U.K. Home, British Gas
