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Project Overview
Powershop's obsessed with helping customers.
This obsession meant that we had to create a simple, clever and beautiful app to add to our existing toolkit. This app allowed customers the ability to monitor, track and engage with their energy. This means that you can see how much your using, what it's costing before you're asked to pay for it!
It provided customers with something absent in offerings from other retailers - full transparency of their energy consumption and cost whenever they like it.
Our goal was to put the power back in the hands of our customers.
Organisation
Team
Powershop launched in Australia in April 2012, since then we have collaborated and designed the Powershop smartphone app. We initially enlisted the expertise of mobile app development company Alphero, but then moved in-house for development, design, ongoing support and enhancements.
We have a handful of developers and creative guys on each side of the Tasman, continuously working to improve the capability and user experience of the app.
Project Brief
Powershop is the world's first, and only online electricity store. It was developed to disrupt the industry by introducing an unconventional model into the mix. Unlike traditional retailers it embraced technology, as that was what was best for the customer, with advanced tools designed to empower and engage.
The smartphone app is an extension of this, providing customers with the ability to access their electricity account and its tools from the convenience of their phone.
We designed an interface to display important, but traditionally bland, information in a beautiful and insightful way.
Customers can:
• View their current account status;
• Easily compare previous months;
• See reliable cost estimates for future months; and
• View their daily usage (including cost and units used per day).
It helps customers with their household budgeting and creates awareness around energy consumption. One of the primary objectives of the app was to present customers with a simple, information rich experience for less effort than it would take to open a traditional bill.
Project Need
Traditionally, the manifestation of the relationship between an electricity retailer and a customer has been the (detested) quarterly bill. While individuals understand that energy that has been consumed must be paid for, the manner in which many of these companies have taken advantage of this relationship is anything but admirable.
This has been all too easy for big fat cat companies as electricity is such a confusing topic, yet a necessity. Retailers have the power to raise their prices and announce this to you when it's time to pay the bill.
So Powershop has introduced a model that encourages engagement and attempts to deliver this otherwise confusing and boring information in a clear and fun manner, all easily accessible from your smartphone. We pride ourselves on our transparency, helping customers understand usage in real-time, providing the ability to cut down on usage and household bills and in the words of some customers - actually making electricity fun.
This model has the potential of revolutionising the industry, as it shows customers that not all retailers are the same, and to stand up against getting ripped off.
User Experience
Our mobile platform is our ultimate customer engagement platform. It incorporates majority of the important information included in their online account, effectively allowing the customer to use the app for all of their needs.
Aside from the previously mentioned perks of what customers can do, one of the major points of difference is how customers purchase electricity, with ours being purchased in the form of products.
This includes standard products with guaranteed discounts, as well as 'spot specials' that appear on the 'shelf' for a limited amount of time but are set at a higher discount.
The app allows us to notify customers of these specials immediately as they may only be available for a couple of hours.
This design is to encourage engagement, as we have found that the most engaged customers are strong advocates.
Off the back of this, we also have our Friend Get Friend promotion accessible from our app. This means a customer can simply enter a friend's email address and should they sign up - they both receive a $75 account credit. Again an initiative to drive engagement, help customers reduce their costs as well as reducing Powershop's cost to acquire new customers.
Regular usability testing occurs to identify improvements, as well as constant review of feedback and analysing behavioural patterns to ensure we are always evolving.
Project Marketing
Our single minded proposition is "Power to the people". The biggest question when designing this app was how do we make electricity fun?
Counteracting the market fatigue that is present in the electricity industry, we try to leverage our main points of difference. These include:
• Attitude;
• Our technology and its extension into the smartphone app; and
• The fact we are backed by 100% renewable generation.
Our strategy involves traditional, below the line and digital media with a strong skew towards social media. Through showing how you can now do something that no one else in the world offers in electricity, we are trying to awaken and engage the uninitiated consumer and show them a better power company.
Project Privacy
Powershop complies with onerous constraints that exist within the heavily regulated electricity industry and as such, developments have incorporated industry best practice data security measures. Not only so that Powershop meets its regulatory obligations, but goes above and beyond them. The customer is first, and that means their privacy is integral to our success.
Best New Service or Application
This category recognises the best new service or application on a mobile platform.
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