SSE Business Energy
TPI Experience
Project: Designing a quoting service for energy brokers, on behalf of one of the UK's leading energy suppliers
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A Third-Party Intermediary (TPI) in the energy sector is like a middle-person that helps connect companies who need energy with the companies that provide it.
Imagine you have a business and you need electricity or gas. Instead of dealing directly with energy suppliers, which can be complex, you work with a TPI.
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Improve the TPIs' experience of managing quotes with SSE
Reduce quote administration tasks for SSE, to allow more focus on proactive client engagement
Allow TPIs to self-serve for more scenarios, to convert more bespoke journey requests into matrix requests
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1x Product Owner
1x Scrum Master
2x Front-end Devs
2x Back-end Devs
1x QE
1x UX Consultant
1x Product Designer 👋
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Increase in number of sales through the service
Uplift in customer satisfaction
Increase in TPI registration
Reduction in bespoke quoting requests coming through client service channels
80% of SSE business sales come from TPIs.
So we knew we had to offer them an excellent experience.
The experience of gathering quotes and generating energy contracts was long, laborious, and riddled with opportunities for human error.
TPIs were spending hours combing pages and pages of spreadsheets, and manually updating prices to contract templates whilst liasing with the clients throughout.
It was nonsense, and SSE were losing a lot of business as a result. Fortunately we were on hand to switch the focus to the the customers, the TPIs, and understanding their needs.
The TPI Experience at the time…
First we needed to understand what the current experience looked like for TPIs. Captured in the image below;
Understanding user needs
We heard directly from TPIs that a poor pricing experience can make all the difference. Energy prices are so competitive - it’s all about the fine margins. With that in mind, we needed to understand what a great experience looks like.
What follows is a summary of the key themes that came from researching with 11 TPIs.
Simplicity.
If TPIs know that a quoting process is complex, or it's slow and they don't have much time, they won't even consider that supplier. "I rarely price up with SSE at the moment as it's too difficult"
Reliability.
TPIs rely on supplier support when it comes to troubleshooting for clients. They will opt for the supplier that is responsive and reliable. "Good supplier means I don't have to help my clients solve issues" "Having the option to pick up the phone is very helpful"
Control.
TPIs need to be able to self serve. "It's too much of a hassle to have to go back and forth with the supplier"
Designing a service around these needs…
With these key themes in mind, I led the team in defining a shortlist of ‘how might we‘ statements, that we could begin ideating around.
How might we speed up the process of gathering quotes?
How might we automate parts of the process, and reduce the potential for human error?
How might we remove the frustration of late-stage credit checks?
Key features, and devising a Delivery Plan
The next steps were to decide key service features, and map the revised service experience, in line with the user needs detailed to us by TPIs, and the business requirements, detailed to us by our stakeholders.
We then moved on to define the delivery map for this new service, in collaboration with our PM and tech leads.
Decisions made regarding all of the points above, are captured in the image below. Within the green box is the MVP, the initial focus for delivery.
Design Approach
We involved TPIs every step of the way.
Throughout the design and development of the pricing service, we conducted seven rounds of usability testing with TPIs to test assumptions, and inform future decisions.
Adaptive design
We knew that most TPIs would be exclusively accessing this service on their desktops. So this is where we focussed our design energy initially.
That being said, I recognised a need to introduce adaptive layouts, whilst observing TPIs in action. Many TPIs were operating off of a single screen, but were splitting the screen to view multiple windows at once.
In order to accommodate these users and to optimise the service for their needs, I designed both tablet and mobile sized variations.
Success metrics
We initially measured the success of this new service through customer feedback, and monitoring the volume change in sales coming through the service.
We then added new TPI registrations, and reduction in quoting requests through SSE CS channels as key measurables for this service.
At the time I left there were ongoing workshops to identify more potential success indicators. Such as an uplift in monthly users to name one.