Customer Experience Journey Mapping Workshops for Residential and Business Customers: High Bill Customer Journey

By Stacey Bailey, VP Chartwell

John Bord, Chartwell Senior Consultant and journey-mapping advisor, is leading journey-mapping workshops for Chartwell’s Leadership Councils. The Customer Experience Leadership Council workshop is focused on the High Bill customer journey, and the Business Customer Leadership Council will map a customer journey in an upcoming meeting. The High Bill workshop identified valuable insights into addressing challenges faced by those customers receiving high energy bills.

Bord began the workshop by covering the key principles that should be used to guide the utility practice of the Journey Mapping process:

As the workshop began, Bord highlighted the importance of understanding and mapping the current state of the customer journey, identifying pain points, and creating a seamless future state experience for customers.

Key Steps in Journey Mapping 

• Define research objectives
• Review any available Voice of the Customer (VOC) data
• Develop different customer personas to reflect diverse experiences

Understanding customer personas is critical for effective journey mapping. Bord encouraged the use of demographic and psychographic data to create accurate representations of customers, which can inform better service delivery. He also suggested merging qualitative and quantitative data to gain deeper insights into customer behavior. This is crucial as different customer segments, such as millennials and seniors, may have varying expectations and emotional responses tied to their utility interactions. Finally, the workshop addressed the need to understand multicultural markets, emphasizing the importance of language, communication, and cultural norms in building trust with customers. Breaking trust can lead to long-term consequences.

The Council did a live journey mapping exercise focused on a persona named Evelyn, who recently moved into an older home and was surprised by her high energy bill. Workshop participants discussed Evelyn’s motivations, emotions, and thought process, and they also explored her likely actions upon receiving the bill, including analyzing the bill, seeking information from neighbors, and potentially contacting the utility.

The workshop participants discussed the potential pain points that Evelyn might experience when contacting the utility, and then walked through how the Customer Service rep, Joey, could assist her – including which probing questions to ask and what strategies and tools might help her analyze her bill. Participants also walked through short-term solutions such as recommending payment options and assistance programs if needed, and longer-term solutions such as rate options, energy efficiency measures, and weatherization and renovation options.

 

To learn more about the Business Customer Leadership Council, please contact Tim Herrick.