Utility companies idea generation challenge

Welcome to the Utility companies idea generation challenge!

All UK utilities ( water, gas, electricity) have a duty of care to vulnerable people ( elderly, children, disabled etc) to protect them from loss of supply wherever possible. 

The companies are able to identify their at risk customers and rank them by need, however, in many instances, by the time they engage with those vulnerable customers, it is too late. The household has been cut off, is in arrears or has defaulted on a payment plan causing anxiety to both parties. 

How could the utilities engage with and manage these types of customers more creatively?  By so doing the utility would improve the care they provide to vulnerable people, enhance their reputation and reduce both administrative costs and the level of unpaid bills.

Round 1

For Round 1, you are expected to submit your completed idea, including:
1. Abstract Paragraph
2. The “Why”
3. User Stories
4. Screenshots or Mockups

Round 2

For Round 2, you are expected to submit your completed idea again. At this point, you may have made changes to your idea, based on any feedback from the client (if applicable).

Requirements
We are looking for ideas around how the utility companies can engage with their most vulnerable customers. They are able to identify a range of customers that might be in this category but how do they make use of that data? Look at the list of channels the companies use to engage with their customers and think about innovative solutions that could enable or enhance that relationship.

Your idea can be either a digital or non-digital solution - both are equally welcome.

Engagement Channels
The following are the different channels the utilities may use to interact with their customers:

• Call centres
  • Company can phone the customer to discuss their bill, give advice on payment options, ways to cut their utility costs, etc.
  • Customer can phone company
• Web chat
• Websites
• Face to face with a customer care representative
  • Visit to customer's home
  • Hold a drop-in clinic in a public building, e.g. health centre, library, job centre
  • Customer visits a local utility office
• Mail
  • Direct mail to customers
  • Mass mail-outs
  • Information included in partner mail-outs
• Campaigns to raise awareness (perhaps directed to to where these vulnerable groups cluster)
• Partnerships with companies in other industries facing similar challenges with the same segments (e.g. mobile providers, collectors of TV licence fees)
• Digital and social media marketing campaigns which leverage of predictive models to serve up relevant ads and messaging
• Email

Example
Customer care staff will go out to visit a customer in their home. To help them with this we could give them an iPad app that has the following functions:

• List of appointments with customer name and address
• Google Maps integration to show them how to get to their next appointment
• Suggest alternatives if a customer is not available - is there someone else they could visit instead?
• Provide a way for the customer care representative to record additional information about the customer - are they defaulting on other bills, are they out of work?

Organizing Your Submission
Your submission should contain a detailed description of your idea. Preferably one document, with four (4) sections:

1. Abstract Paragraph – Describe your killer idea in this paragraph!
e.g. The Customer Care Mobile App allows field staff to maximise their time with customers by managing their appointments, giving them directions, identifying alternative customers and enabling the collection of additional data.

2. The “Why” – Tell us why this is the a great idea, what need it is addressing and how this can change the world!
e.g. This app will make the utility company's staff much more productive and enable them to help more people in the community. As they collect additional information about their customers the data will become more and more valuable so the type of help offered can be tailored to the individual. It will also go into the predictive techniques used to identify new vulnerable people.

3. User Stories – Write 2 or more user stories/use cases for this application.
- e.g.
1…..
2….
3 While visiting a customer the customer services representative can record data about the customer's personal circumstances.

4. Screenshots or Mockups
- You are encouraged to provide screenshots or mockups of your idea to explain it more, any final winner that provides screenshots or mockups in his idea will win an extra $100.

Although there are no limit to number of submissions you can upload, you should only upload multiple submissions if each one is comprehensive and substantially different from your others. Within these constraints, you are free to describe any number of alternative approaches and extra features. In fact, we encourage you to do so. You can't have too many ideas!

As a reminder you can submit anything you think highlights your idea clearly.

The sky's the limit! Good luck!

Note:  We will buy any additional submission we like for $100.

Target Audience
Target audience will be vulnerable people (elderly, children, disabled etc). 

Judging Criteria
You will be judged on your creativity of the idea.

Submission & Source Files:
Preview Image
Create your preview image as one (1) 1024x1024 JPG or PNG file in RGB color mode at 72dpi and place a screenshot of your submission within it.
- You can take screenshot of your idea document and submit it.
- You can provide a blank image file and use it as preview image.

Submission Files
All original source files of the submitted ideas; it can be PDF, HTML, DOC, TXT or RTF file.

Source Files
All original source files of the submitted ideas; it can be PDF, HTML, DOC, TXT or RTF file.

Final Fixes
As part of the final fixes phase you may be asked to complete one round of minor changes to ensure your submission meets the stated requirements of this challenge.