Going digital: Smart meter guide for EDF

Originally sourced from ORM Digital website

As one of the UK’s leading energy companies, EDF has a customer base of more than 5.7 million people. They sought a way to reduce pressure on the call centre when it comes to the setup and issue resolution of Smart Meter In Home Display (IHD) units – common queries that saw many customers facing problems.

It was decided that there was a need to create a digital smart guide where the majority of issues are answered and resolved online. This supports customers to self-serve, which is ideal for those who want instant support at a time that suits them.

ORM worked with EDF over a seven week engagement on the ideation, design, build and testing of the product. This rapid product development cycle employs a lean team across both businesses, ensuring there are regular touchpoints and cadences to keep track of progress. It was essential that the final output was a scalable MVP for a business case and once proven, iterated on and re-used for other similar business problems.

“We were really impressed by how quickly the ORM team was able to turn this product around for us and the flexibility they delivered so we can use this for future customer experience developments. Improving the digital experience through innovative projects like this one is key for our business going forwards, so working with the right partner was essential – and using ORM’s methodologies means we’ll be able to test, learn and adjust to make future products and services work even better. In the meantime, we look forward to rolling this digital smart meter guide out to our customer base,” commented Richard O’Brien at EDF.

“Working in an agile way was essential for this, as EDF needed to bring a prototype to market quickly. By employing a rapid product development cycle, an MVP could be created with rigorous testing of real customers and a lean team building code at low fidelity, before moving towards high fidelity. We kept the new product separate from EDF platforms to simplify the need to integrate with EDF IT systems until the business case is proven. We’re pleased to have been able to introduce this way of working and see future iterations of the product as it’s rolled out across the business,” added Andrea Stuart, ORM’s Business Director who led on the engagement.

ORM was first introduced to EDF by our parent group, Paragon Customer Communications, who has worked with the energy company over the last 10 years on its marketing communications and transactional print.