The entire delivery team were brilliant at not only what they did technically and from a UI/UX design perspective, but they were engaging, responsive and supported us through any curveballs. It has always felt as though we were one team, working together to deliver the app
Stephanie Blemmings
Project Manager - Northumbrian Water
Frictionless account management
300,000+ bill payments
Smart meter integration
Phase 1
The challenge
Northumbrian Water
The Northumbrian Water mobile app transformed customer experience around billing, making it easier for customers to pay bills securely and get key bill information. With a proud focus on innovation, Northumbrian Water are trailblazers in their sector, delivering ambitious digital services to enhance their award-winning service their 5 million customers.
The brief
The initial brief required us to build a customers app that would deliver improved CX, operational efficiencies and community engagement. Since the launch, we have continued to deliver a programme of continuous improvement, developing new features for the app to support Northumbrian Water's commitment to delivering what matters for their customers, communities and environment.
Effortless onboarding and security around account number recovery were essential to the success of the new application and the team at Northumbrian Water were also focused on providing:
- Clear billing and payment information
- Flexibility around payment methods
- Device-specific capability to tailor the user experience
- Seamless interaction with internal customer systems
Phase 2
The approach
Partnership
Working closely with our partners at Northumbrian Water, we held a series of Business Analysis workshops to analyse current customer journeys. Together with stakeholders, we helped to define customer needs and high-level architecture requirements. With our research in hand, we meticulously mapped out the initial user journey, producing a suite of on-brand, high-fidelity visual prototypes.
Customer focus
The Shout team designed and engineered clear, simple journeys, both for those customers who could be fast-tracked to billing information and for those who needed to move through a more sophisticated authentication process. The first iteration of the app meant once authenticated, customers could travel through an intuitive payment gateway, which uses Northumbrian Water’s payment partner GlobalPay and directs them through tailored payment journeys, depending on their account type and status.
Phase 3
The outcome
The initial version of the app was rolled out to the Apple and Google Play stores, and had immediate positive feedback from customers.
Since the launch, we have worked with Northumbrian Water on a programme of continuous improvement, developing new features for the app to support their commitment to delivering what matters for their customers, communities and environment.
Some of the highlights are outlined below.
Self service billing
Integration with the internal customer database at NWL means that customers can view their bills, download a copy to their device and access their account balance all within the app. Whether customers are metered or not, they get an aligned customer experience and fast, easy to understand information, and can set up text message reminders when their bill is due.
Personalised in-app payments
The app reacts to the customer based on their payment type, and status, and will change colour if a payment is due (or overdue) on the account. Customers not on direct debit can access a guided workflow to let them choose a payment amount and pay their bill directly in the app – including an option to use ApplePay or GooglePay.
Self service payment plans
Customers can even set up a payment plan directly in the app – without the need to call NWL. This is made possible via an integration with the NWL payment service that calculates the recommended payment value.
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