Thames Water, British Gas and Scottish Hydro offer customers the best online user experience among UK energy and water suppliers, according to a new study. The findings provide valuable feedback for an industry that is becoming aware of the potential cost savings in encouraging and supporting its customers in moving to online services.
In the 2010 Energy & Water Supplier Usability Report, from user experience consultancy, Webcredible, commissioned by Utility Week, Thames Water came top of the 11 water supplier websites, with a usability score of 4.3 out of five, while British Gas and Scottish Hydro finished joint top of the 13 energy supplier websites, also with scores of 4.3 out of five.
Thames Water also came top in a similar report from Webcredible in 2009, but the scoring system and criteria have since been developed.
Although these companies led the way in offering easy-to-use websites to utility customers, the sector as a whole still leaves quite a lot to be desired when it comes to website usability, the survey found.
Four energy suppliers and three water suppliers who scored an average of less than three out of 5 brought the overall average score down to 3.3 out of five.
The sites at the bottom end of the scale lacked fundamental usability principles and failed to incorporate elements of the customer lifecycle that are important for a good user experience.
Energy and water suppliers as a whole scored very similarly, with both groups scoring an average of 3.3 out of five.
First Utility, Utilita Services Ltd, Anglian Water, and Severn Trent Water all obtained an average score of four out of five bringing the total scoring four or more to seven.
The Utility Warehouse and Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water had the lowest scores of the energy suppliers and water suppliers, respectively, both with a score of just 1.3 out of five.
The report looked at homepage usability, navigation, design and aesthetics and task efficiency of all 24 websites, and evaluated the sites against best practice usability guidelines for five stages of the customer lifecycle – Inspire, research, decide, buy and retain.
Trenton Moss, Director at Webcredible, comments, “With so much of the UK population going online, the opportunity for energy and water supplier websites to increase their audience contact, especially with hard to reach groups, is huge. It’s clear that utility companies are becoming aware of the potential benefits in widespread usage of online services.
“However, while some sites demonstrate a good understanding of the online customer lifecycle, many utilities are still not focusing enough on the whole user experience and are potentially driving customers back offline. It’s no longer sufficient just to offer an aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-use website, as there are now a vast number of touch-points with the user, where the experience must be considered.”
Janet Wood, Editor of Utility Week magazine, commented, “Utilities are keen to offer their customers a variety of ways to contact them, and if they can provide good online services to those who want to use them it can cut costs for everybody. It is clear from these results that some companies have some way to go before their websites have the usability that customers need.”
For the full story see www.utilityweek.co.uk, a full copy of the report can be purchased at www.webcredible.co.uk/utility
The full list of websites audited, and the score they achieved for each guideline is as follows:
Methodology
Webcredible analysed the websites of 24 of the UK’s leading energy and water suppliers in October and November 2010. A related study had previously been completed in October 2007, November 2008, and November 2009.
Each website was evaluated against 4 best practice guidelines during 5 stages of the customer lifecycle and assigned a score of 0 – 5 for each guideline, with 5 being the maximum. Websites were then assigned an average usability rating out of five. A full copy of the report can be downloaded from www.webcredible.co.uk/utility.
