In 2018 and 2019, I was part of a team that worked with an anonymous local utility company to explore ways to improve the customer experience for low-income customers. Our goal was to identify pain points in the process of applying for financial aid and to propose possible solutions to make the process more accessible and efficient.
To understand the customer experience, our team conducted extensive research and created customer journey maps to illustrate the process of applying for financial aid. However, we found that low-income customers were often directed to an unusable process when attempting to get assistance, and that confusion and misinformation plagued the process once they received aid. To better illustrate this experience, I created a process journey with arrows leading back to the beginning each time they were denied access. This visual aid helped to highlight just how underutilized the aid programs were, with our team only able to get the assistance they needed one time out of dozens of tries.
Our research led to the development of several potential programs that the utility company could implement to improve the customer experience. One of the proposed solutions was a kiosk hub that could be placed in areas around the community. This kiosk would provide customers with information about sustainable energy, help them to look up bills and energy statements, and provide useful items such as surge protectors and LED lightbulbs. As the visual designer on the team, I illustrated the customer journeys, created interactive timelines, and assisted in the creation of our interactive kiosk prototype.
This project allowed our client to better understand the challenges that low-income customers face when applying for financial aid, and helped them to develop more accessible assistance programs. The kiosk hub concept that we proposed could potentially make a significant impact on the community by providing valuable resources and reducing energy consumption. Additionally, the success of this project led to further work for our agency.
