FPL does not care about Florida.
Or do they?
As a matter of fact FPL (Florida Power & Light) performed incredibly post Hurricane Irma, restoring power to millions in a matter of a week. I hold the FPL field workers in high esteem, risking their lives to go out in the elements, working long shifts so that most of us can have access to our Wifi and cold A/C. I was without air for 6 days, complaining that FPL is not up-to-date with their technology, and dishing out my first world problems faster than I could eat the abundance of power bars in my pantry. . . Humbly though, I jumped into my backyard pool during the hot sun and realized how good we actually have it here in the U.S.A. compared to other countries that were not so lucky during Irma’s roll.
The long days offered contemplation however. Mostly alone in my own thoughts, or engrossed in the complaints of my family and close neighbors, I began to realize a pattern.
People’s complaints post Irma circled around a few repetitive phrases:
- “It’s so hot”
2. When are they (FPL) going to restore my power. Why are they taking so long”
3. They restored ‘Enter Name’s’ power, why aren’t they working on ours.
4. “I’m going to go out there and find out where they are, and ask them to work on our power myself.”
Bonus: I overheard an FPL worker complaining that he was getting harassed by people asking about power restoration timelines and even being bribed to turn on their power before others.
The pattern appeared here. It wasn’t that FPL was doing a bad job, they were working extremely hard. It’s just that they lacked the ability to give personalized communication to their customers. They were perceived as inconsiderate, impersonal, and had poor communication. They lacked the same customer service experience they provided physically, to the rest of their major brand touch points including their website and mobile app. They have to show they cared.
Problem:
The only way to learn about power recovery was through broad statements on the news. Their website was overloaded with traffic, limiting a users ability to view any restoration information, and once logged in, the restoration information only catered to a “County View”. I also was alerted with a note saying that “there was no need to submit any tickets, FPL had it handled”.
People felt lost, unappreciated, and had minimal trust in the company they spend hundreds of dollars on each month.
After gathering this information, and with time to spare, I decided to redesign a flow for FPL.com.
The goal:
To establish a deeper connection with customers, to make them feel like FPL cared enough to give them tailored restoration information and to even check-in with real-time status.
The current design focuses on FPL’s “Power Tracker Service” which allows a customer to view power outages in counties near their home. The current service lacks:
- An ability to view your home specifically.
- An estimated time on when your power will arrive.
- A way to become alerted on power status in your area and neighboring counties.
The solution:
I designed the flow below to tackle this goal. This flow includes:
- An ability to hover over counties and see current power status.
- An address bar at the top to go directly to your home.
- A personal power tracker detailing your home’s service. When your power was lost, reasons why, and an estimated restoration date.
- At the bottom of this power tracker is an ‘input phone number” feature. The goal here is for FPL to send customers a text update on restoration efforts to your area. This function only works if you sign-in to your FPL account beforehand, for privacy reasons.
Ideally, this flow’s goal is to provide real-time updates on the status of your power restoration. By being able to directly view your home’s data and then having the option to submit your phone number for text alerts, a user could potentially feel more connected to FPL and valued/serviced at all brand experience points.
Check out the flow below!
What do you think? Do you love it, do you hate it, would this flow allow you to feel more connected to FPL’s service? How are large companies today focusing on providing a full brand experience from physical efforts to digital? Is the overall brand experience on par at all points?
Let’s talk about it. Leave a comment below!
- Disclaimer: The views and design of this article do not reflect FPL’s business strategy or views. This is a re-design project of my own interests and effort.
