Stephanie Spalding, Research Manager at E Source, goes through the key findings from the 2011 E Source Website Study conducted on over 100 gas and electric utility companies in the United States and Canada. For more information: www.esource.com/ces More about Stephanie: http://www.esource.com/staff_bio/stephanie_spalding

1. Key Findings from the 2011
E Source Website Study
Stephanie Spalding
Research Manager, E Source
EUCI Web Self-Service Conference
www.esource.com January 2012

2. The Good!
“a real pleasure”
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3. “ clever and fun”
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4. “detailed and easily
accessible
user-friendly
experience.”
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5. “awesome!
great resources
I would feel prepared and
informed”
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6. The Bad …
“Overall it was a
frustrating
experience.”
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7. “This was just too many
steps and kind of
annoying.”
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8. “The site is poorly
organized and a few years
behind the times.”
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9. … and the Ugly
lost, confused,
“
and frustrated. Should
be revamped.”
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10. “What ahorrible online
account page.”
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11. awful
“This was a pretty
experience.”
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12. Updated in 2011: Mobile Web
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13. New in 2011: Social Media
Source: Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
Source: Baltimore Gas & Electric
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14. Which Features Were Reviewed?
General Information Secure Mobile
 Home Page  Registration and Login  Home Page
 Contact Us  My Account  Contact Us
 Payment and Billing  Account Balance  Outage/Emergency
Options  Account History Reporting*
 Moving  Online Bill Viewing  Outage/Gas Leak
 Energy-Saving Tips  Online Payment Status
 Programs and  My Energy Use  Registration and Login
Services  Outage/Gas Leak  My Account
 Search Status  Account Balance
 Online Account  Online Payment
Management  My Energy Use
 Work Order Status  Account Alerts*
 Payment  Payment
Arrangements Arrangements
* = Only reviewed on mobile devices
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15. Which Companies Were Included?
 The largest electric and gas companies in the U.S.
and Canada plus a representative set of small and
midsize utilities
 100 companies met our criteria, including 94 that
were also reviewed in 2009
 72 companies provided us with account information
to review secure options
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16. How Were Reviews Conducted?
 Between December 2010 and April 2011
 By task in four phases
 Tasks by company were randomly assigned
 Questions reviewers asked:
 Was the feature available on the website?
 Was it easy to use?
 Reviewers commented on their experiences,
provided ratings, and took screenshots of each
feature
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17. Who Were the Reviewers?
 Six people recruited from our local Boulder,
Colorado, community
 Three men, three women
 Internet and mobile-device savvy
 Two reviewer segments:
 “Transactional” reviewers view and pay their bills online.
 “Informational” reviewers use the web but do not view or
pay their bills online.
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18. How Was Quality Controlled?
 We provided extensive training
 Supervisors scrutinized reviews for consistency
between the comments and the rating given, and to
ensure our processes were followed accurately
 Half of the reviews were conducted a second time
by a different reviewer
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19. Methodology Changes
Tasks were not named
 Reviewers were given an unnamed scenario describing
the task they should attempt (“Task A,” not “Payment and
Billing Options”)
 This change was intended to remove any bias toward
looking for an exact feature name.
Task A
Scenario: You’ve been receiving and paying your bill through
the same methods for years and are curious what your other
options are. You go to the website to investigate.
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20. Methodology Changes (cont.)
Limited review without account access
 If we didn’t have account access, we did not attempt to
review several features that we determined would only be
available behind a login:
 My Account
 My Account (Mobile)
 Account Balance
 Account Balance (Mobile)
 Account History
 Online Account Management
 Online Bill Viewing
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21. What Is “Usability”?
A measure of the reviewer’s experience using the
web to accomplish their task.
Usability rating Interpretation
5 (very good) Excellent experience; easy to find and/or use; there are
no suggestions for improvement
4 (good) Good experience; reasonably easy to find and/or use;
has few areas that need improvement
3 (average) Average experience; neither easy nor difficult to find
and/or use; has obvious areas that need improvement
2 (poor) Poor experience; difficult to find and/or use; requires
significant improvements
1 (very poor) Very poor experience; the option is present on the
website, but is extremely difficult to find and/or use;
requires significant improvements to be usable
© E Source
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22. What Is “Functionality”?
The percentage of the 29 features that were found on
an electric or gas utility’s website.
Example: If we found 20 of the 29 features we
looked for, the functionality score would be 69
percent.
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23. Overall Performance of Utility Websites
Account Access No Account Access
5
Average functionality = 75%
Average rating for each website
4
Usability
Average usability = 3.1
3
2
1
0 20 40 60 80 100
Functionality
Average percentage of features found
© E Source
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24. Slight Preference for Apple Devices
Overall mobile average usability = 3.0
Total features tested on mobile devices = 781
5
Average usability
4
3
2
1
BlackBerry Curve (88) iPad (145) iPod Touch (445) Sanyo Zio [Android]
(103)
Mobile device (number of features reviewed on device)
Note: Usability was rated on a scale from 1 to © E Source
5, where 1 = very poor and 5 = very good.
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25. Usability Ratings Lowest for Online
Payment and My Energy Use
Average usability
Feature
rating
My Energy Use 2.91
Online Payment 2.87
Online Payment (Mobile) 2.83
My Energy Use (Mobile) 2.78
© E Source
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26. Not Much Difference Between Mobile
and Desktop Usability
Mobile Desktop
Outage/Gas Leak Status
Home Page
Account Balance
Payment Arrangements
Feature
Contact Us
Registration and Login
My Account
Online Payment
My Energy Use
1 2 3 4 5
Usability rating © E Source
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27. Most Common Mobile-Optimized
Features
Outage/Emergency Reporting 13
Mobile-Optimized Feature
Home Page 10
Outage/Gas Leak Status 8
Account Balance 6
My Account 5
Contact Us 5
Online Payment 4
Registration and Login 4
Account Alerts 1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Number of Sites Supporting
© E Source
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28. Mobile-Optimized is Best
3.1 vs. 3.7
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29. Top Recommendations from 2011
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30. Utility Website Design Center
© E Source
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32. What’s Next?
 E Source Customer Experience Conference
 May 7-9, 2012
 Green Valley Ranch, Henderson, Nevada (close to Las
Vegas)
 Highlights:
 Utility Chief Customer Officer Keynote
 Outside industry experts (Zappos, FedEx, etc.)
 Zappos Insights Tour
 Great facility, networking, and dining!
 www.esource.com/ucec2012
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33. For More Information
Stephanie Spalding
Research Manager, E Source
303-345-9121 stephanie_spalding@esource.com
@EsourceSteph
Have a question? Ask our experts: www.esource.com/question
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34. Questions?
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