Bellawatt

Solutions: Research & Planning Services

Enrollment fails in four places. Teams usually fix one.

A customer has to hear about a program, understand it, trust it, and get through the sign-up before they say yes. Stakeholder interviews, user research, usability testing, and technical de-risking find which of those gave way in your service territory, before anything is built.

Everyone has a theory about which step is broken.

A customer has to hear about the program, understand it, believe it, and get through the sign-up. From the inside each failure looks like a different kind of problem, so teams fix the one they assumed, and fixing the wrong one changes nothing. Finding out which step is failing in your territory is what the research is for.

  1. Awareness

    “Never heard of it.”

    A channel problem: the fix is where the message shows up.

  2. Comprehension

    “Heard of it, can’t parse it.”

    A language problem: the fix is how the program is explained.

  3. Trust

    “Understand, but can’t trust.”

    A messenger problem: the fix is who says it, and with what proof.

  4. Friction

    “Believes it, can’t enroll.”

    A flow problem: the fix is in the sign-up steps themselves.

What an engagement includes

Four activities, each reading a different part of the sequence above. The people who run them are the people who design and build what comes next.

  • Stakeholder interviews

    We interview the program, customer service, regulatory, and IT teams, with questions shaped by the programs we have built before. An objection that surfaces here is one that never arrives later as a change order.

    • Awareness
    • Comprehension
    • Trust
    • Friction

    Deliverable

    The decision in front of you, stated once and agreed to, with the constraints around it and the objections on the table.

  • User research

    What customers in your service territory understand, where they hesitate, and what would move them, drawn from what they did rather than what they say they would do.

    • Awareness
    • Comprehension
    • Trust

    Deliverable

    Where customers stopped and why, segment by segment.

  • Usability testing

    We watch customers move through the experience before it ships, and again after launch, once real customers are on a live program.

    • Comprehension
    • Friction

    Deliverable

    Measured comprehension and completion, before it ships and after.

  • Technical de-risking

    The unglamorous questions that kill or derail projects, answered before the build, when they cost a tenth of what they would in production.

    • Friction

    Deliverable

    The technical questions answered before the build, with the integrations, checks, and data the sign-up depends on scoped.

The answer is different in every territory.

Without grounding in your service territory, every interface ships as a generalization. Regulation, market structure, climate, and household income all vary from one territory to the next, and each one changes what a program can promise and how customers read it.

  • Renewable and clean energy standards, by stateAlaska: No standard or goalAlabama: No standard or goalArkansas: No standard or goalArizona: Mandatory standardCalifornia: Mandatory standard; hatched on the source mapColorado: Mandatory standard; hatched on the source mapConnecticut: Mandatory standard; hatched on the source mapDistrict of Columbia: Mandatory standardDelaware: Mandatory standardFlorida: No standard or goalGeorgia: No standard or goalHawaii: Mandatory standardIowa: Mandatory standardIdaho: No standard or goalIllinois: Mandatory standardIndiana: Voluntary goalKansas: Voluntary goalKentucky: No standard or goalLouisiana: No standard or goalMassachusetts: Mandatory standard; hatched on the source mapMaryland: Mandatory standardMaine: Mandatory standardMichigan: Mandatory standardMinnesota: Mandatory standardMissouri: Mandatory standardMississippi: No standard or goalMontana: Mandatory standardNorth Carolina: Mandatory standardNorth Dakota: Voluntary goalNebraska: No standard or goalNew Hampshire: Mandatory standardNew Jersey: Mandatory standard; hatched on the source mapNew Mexico: Mandatory standard; hatched on the source mapNevada: Mandatory standard; hatched on the source mapNew York: Mandatory standard; hatched on the source mapOhio: Mandatory standardOklahoma: Voluntary goalOregon: Mandatory standardPennsylvania: Mandatory standardRhode Island: Mandatory standard; hatched on the source mapSouth Carolina: Voluntary goalSouth Dakota: Voluntary goalTennessee: No standard or goalTexas: Mandatory standardUtah: Voluntary goalVirginia: Mandatory standardVermont: Mandatory standardWashington: Mandatory standard; hatched on the source mapWisconsin: Mandatory standard; hatched on the source mapWest Virginia: No standard or goalWyoming: No standard or goal

    Regulatory environment

    Your commission's posture changes what you can ship and when.

  • ISO and RTO footprints, with traditionally regulated territory in grey

    Market structure

    Retail choice, community aggregation, and municipal boundaries reshape who the customer even thinks their utility is.

  • Climate zones, in four bands

    Local climate

    A heat pump program reads differently at -10°F than at 45°F, and so does the rate that supports it.

  • Median household income by county, from lowest to highest

    Affordability

    Which customers feel affordability pressure, and how hard, differs across your territory.

A research team looking at a computer together.

Solutions to customer engagement

Research & Planning Services

Stakeholder interviews, user research, and technical de-risking ground every build. Also available standalone.

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