How something that isn’t sexy, still can be successfull

This blog is about the results of 6 weeks of thinking and working on a way to improve the image of a public utillity through a user generated community. In broad outlines I’ll sketch how and why the final solution to this problem is, against all odds, very close to the company itself.

Final presentation of concept and prototype
Yesterday I had the final presentation for 1,5 month during schoolassigment for a dutch public utillity; ENECO. It was all well-organized; ENECO had hired some space in a big building which houses several companies, the in Rotterdam well known Groothandelsgebouw. Every projectgroup that entered the assignment got a small table with a diameter of 70 centimeter. That was the place that we had to use to present our concept and prototype. We used the table for two computers to show our prototype: on each computer a movieclip with a scenario that a persona, representative of our target group (people from Rotterdam, (potential) customers of ENECO), passes through. Two posters that we designed for a campagne to support the whole thing, we sticked on the desk.

Unexpected outcome
In the beginning I did’t feel like coming to this masspresentation (there were like 35 other project-groups, all presenting their concept for ENECO). Allthough my groupmembers and me thought we had a sober, but smart and well-founded solution to the problem of ENECO (ENECO wants a closer connection to their customers), in an earlier presentation on monday for schoolteachers we got a disappointing grade because it wasn’t innovative enough. Allthough my IVID teacher Jim Boekbinder (who wasn’t at that presentation on monday, and did’t have anything to do with this grade), who knew our concept very well (and helped us a lot with it) and was quite enthousiastic about it, told us that this “rejection” is a common thing when suggesting a good, but not sexy solution to a company in need, I still felt a little bit like a looser. We were very certain about this idea, and still it was rejected!

A public utillity with their own, Youtube-like, community
So, you are probably wondering what our “brilliant” idea was about (or maybe not, but I’ll still write about it). Well, first a short description of the problem: ENECO, a public utillity with a stuffy image, wants a closer connection with their customers. Because they saw the success of user generated communities like Youtube they thought it would be a good idea to organize such a thing especially for their customers. Maybe you already see a slight problem: A public utillity with a user generated community; what kind of content should the users upload, and what should they talk about with each other? ENECO found that the theme of the community should be: “This gives me energy”, Through this “energyplatform” the users had to see energy as a concrete thing and associate energy with ENECO.

Eneco Recharge: our solution to ENECO’s problem
Our solution to the problem of ENECO was a little different then all then the other project groups, who’s thought up communities were all outside the main website of ENECO, with a very different style from ENECO. Our community itself was not really special: It was about people telling about what in their own neighbourhood environment “recharges” them, users can show on a map of their hometown where their “Recharge Spot” is.
The special thing about it, in comparison to the other solutions is that thís community is integrated in the main ENECO website and keeps the house style of ENECO. That is where customers take care of their energy-administration, like passing on their meter-readings, or new adress data in case of moving. That is also the place where non-customers, when using ENECO Recharge, will notice the other services of ENECO, and can get interested in being a customer. Because the current communication on the ENECO website is very business-like, we also had some suggestions for ENECO on how to create more balance between the business-like communication of Eneco.nl and the much more personal communication of our Eneco Recharge. Otherwise the communication by integrading Eneco Recharge in Eneco.nl would be very conflicting.

Summary: Eneco Recharge means integrating an opportunity for users to communicate with each other about their neighbourhood in ENECO’s main website, improve it’s Information Architechture to personalize information that the target group wants to see and approach them in a more personal way.

A community can be usefull in a personal way
An example of how our community can be of personal use for the ENECO customer is when someone moves passes on his new adress data. That person mostly doesn’t know much about his new neighbourhood, so Eneco Recharge can anticipate on this by offering him a service which let him meet with an inhabitant from his new neighbourhood. That person has recently ago uploaded a photo with a message on the map of the Eneco Recharge Community to tell other people about his favorite spot in his neighbourhood: his Recharge Spot. Through coupling the exsisting services customers already use with such a community there can be anticipated on being usefull on a personal for customers, who will feel as if they have more in common with their energy supplier ENECO.

Positive confirmation
Eventually it was a good thing that I went to this meeting. There were a lot of people form ENECO, the people that were really in charge of the final decision about which kind of concept (community) ENECO would like to host to improve their image. They gave Eneco Recharge really positive feedback, for me enough confirmation about the usefullness of our sober, but really potentialfull concept. We’ll see in the near future if and what ENECO will do with our suggestions.