NiSource promotes ease of use in its upgraded and award-winning online customer experience
With a goal of making key online transactions easier for customers, NiSource revamped its website last year and along the way earned an American Business Awards Gold “Stevie” award for its efforts.
The award recognized NiSource for its outstanding customer-facing website experience. Judges hailed it as simple to use; intuitive for older users while giving new users a great start; and informative, with monthly usage charts, alerts and easy online payment options.
“To do the work, we interviewed or surveyed more than 300 of our Columbia Gas and NIPSCO customers and listened to conversations on social media,” Jennifer Montague, senior vice president and chief customer officer at NiSource Inc., told American Gas. “We created customer personas, developed website prototypes and conducted five rounds of usability testing on more than 100 customers to make refinements based on their feedback.”
Some notable improvements included establishing the customer’s email address as the username, which eliminates the need to remember a separate username; providing more payment options, such as PayPal and Amazon; making information accessible with fewer clicks; and making it easier for customers to enroll in payment programs, such as AutoPay and paperless billing.
“We also made the website fully responsive, with multiple break points, so a customer has a good experience regardless of their device,” Montague said.
Future plans include refining navigation, personalizing customers’ dashboards and developing new capabilities for customers to transact with the utility digitally, such as chatbots, a mobile app and live chat.
“We also plan to expand the ease of use for additional customer segments, including landlords, suppliers, and commercial and industrial customers, and create efficiencies in the overall management of the website by automating certain transactions and support needs, such as ADA support,” Montague said.
For other utilities interested in spearheading a redesign, Montague advises seeking out customer input throughout the process and being intentional about keeping the redesign team motivated while it handles the laborious and exacting nature of a website redo.
“Don’t treat a redesign as a one-and-done project—once a website launches, ongoing grooming is critical to keep the website performing and relevant for customers,” she added. “Customers’ needs will continue to evolve, and our digital channels also need the flexibility to support those evolving needs.”