British Gas
Customer journeys for a digital age
Problem
Facing increasing pressure from competitors and rising operational costs, British Gas aimed to streamline its digital journey for boiler purchases.
Business goals
• Reduce operational costs by lowering the need for home sales visits
• Stay competitive against agile, digital-first rivals
• Improve speed & accessibility for customers needing urgent boiler replacements
Outcomes
• Delivered a faster, more accessible experience
• Improved access for vulnerable customers through accessibility optimisation
• Cut costs and increased operational efficiency by reducing need for home visits
Role
Design Consultant
Skills
End-to-end product design
Customer research
Stakeholder management
User research & testing
Championing accessibility
British Gas
Customer journeys for a digital age
Problem
Facing increasing pressure from competitors and rising operational costs, British Gas aimed to streamline its digital journey for boiler purchases.
Business goals
• Reduce operational costs by lowering the need for home sales visits
• Stay competitive against agile, digital-first rivals
• Improve speed & accessibility for customers needing urgent boiler replacements
Outcomes
• Delivered a faster, more accessible experience
• Improved access for vulnerable customers through accessibility optimisation
• Cut costs and increased operational efficiency by reducing need for home visits
Role
Design Consultant
Skills
End-to-end product design
Customer research
Stakeholder management
User research & testing
Championing accessibility
British Gas
Customer journeys for a digital age
Problem
Facing increasing pressure from competitors and rising operational costs, British Gas aimed to streamline its digital journey for boiler purchases.
Business goals
• Reduce operational costs by lowering the need for home sales visits
• Stay competitive against agile, digital-first rivals
• Improve speed & accessibility for customers needing urgent boiler replacements
Outcomes
• Delivered a faster, more accessible experience
• Improved access for vulnerable customers through accessibility optimisation
• Cut costs and increased operational efficiency by reducing need for home visits
Role
Design Consultant
Skills
End-to-end product design
Customer research
Stakeholder management
User research & testing
Championing accessibility
Commercial impact
2x
Sales target achieved
100+
Boiler installations
1m+
Site visits
Commercial impact
2x
Sales target achieved
100+
Boiler installations
1m+
Site visits
Commercial impact
2x
Sales target achieved
100+
Boiler installations
1m+
Site visits
Empathise & discover
Uncovering real customer needs through research, interviews and observation
Discovery interviews
Undertaking in-home discovery interviews with customers who had recently bought a boiler helped in understanding their mindset, behaviour, pain points and how they viewed different providers.
Exploring their journey from initial breakdown to final purchase, uncovered what shaped their decisions and how the overall experience made them feel.
Behavioural insights
Boiler breakdowns often come as a shock. People rely on heating and hot water without thinking, so when they fail, it creates stress and vulnerability.
Some resort to temporary fixes, like using the gym to shower. Replacing a boiler is expensive - often around £3,000 - and rarely feels rewarding. It’s an urgent, high-stakes purchase.
Empathise & discover
Uncovering real customer needs through research, interviews and observation
Discovery interviews
Undertaking in-home discovery interviews with customers who had recently bought a boiler helped in understanding their mindset, behaviour, pain points and how they viewed different providers.
Exploring their journey from initial breakdown to final purchase, uncovered what shaped their decisions and how the overall experience made them feel.
Behavioural insights
Boiler breakdowns often come as a shock. People rely on heating and hot water without thinking, so when they fail, it creates stress and vulnerability.
Some resort to temporary fixes, like using the gym to shower. Replacing a boiler is expensive - often around £3,000 - and rarely feels rewarding. It’s an urgent, high-stakes purchase.
Empathise & discover
Uncovering real customer needs through research, interviews and observation
Discovery interviews
Undertaking in-home discovery interviews with customers who had recently bought a boiler helped in understanding their mindset, behaviour, pain points and how they viewed different providers.
Exploring their journey from initial breakdown to final purchase, uncovered what shaped their decisions and how the overall experience made them feel.
Behavioural insights
Boiler breakdowns often come as a shock. People rely on heating and hot water without thinking, so when they fail, it creates stress and vulnerability.
Some resort to temporary fixes, like using the gym to shower. Replacing a boiler is expensive - often around £3,000 - and rarely feels rewarding. It’s an urgent, high-stakes purchase.
Define & ideate
Shaping solutions through insight synthesis and stakeholder collaboration
Journey mapping
Translating insights into a detailed customer journey map, capturing the end-to-end experience from boiler failure to installation.
This helped identify key moments of friction, emotional highs and lows and areas where support dropped off.
It became a shared reference point for aligning teams and prioritising improvements across digital and offline touchpoints.
Experience blueprint
Authoring the user flow and service blueprint in close collaboration with stakeholders across the business.
This ensured alignment with existing journeys, technology and operational logic.
By involving teams who own different parts of the estate, potential conflicts are avoided and uncovers reuse opportunities for a flow that works seamlessly within the wider service landscape.
Define & ideate
Shaping solutions through insight synthesis and stakeholder collaboration
Journey mapping
Translating insights into a detailed customer journey map, capturing the end-to-end experience from boiler failure to installation.
This helped identify key moments of friction, emotional highs and lows and areas where support dropped off.
It became a shared reference point for aligning teams and prioritising improvements across digital and offline touchpoints.
Experience blueprint
Authoring the user flow and service blueprint in close collaboration with stakeholders across the business.
This ensured alignment with existing journeys, technology and operational logic.
By involving teams who own different parts of the estate, potential conflicts are avoided and uncovers reuse opportunities for a flow that works seamlessly within the wider service landscape.
Define & ideate
Shaping solutions through insight synthesis and stakeholder collaboration
Journey mapping
Translating insights into a detailed customer journey map, capturing the end-to-end experience from boiler failure to installation.
This helped identify key moments of friction, emotional highs and lows and areas where support dropped off.
It became a shared reference point for aligning teams and prioritising improvements across digital and offline touchpoints.
Experience blueprint
Authoring the user flow and service blueprint in close collaboration with stakeholders across the business.
This ensured alignment with existing journeys, technology and operational logic.
By involving teams who own different parts of the estate, potential conflicts are avoided and uncovers reuse opportunities for a flow that works seamlessly within the wider service landscape.
Design
Shaping the experience to deliver clarity and delight
User interface design
With the journey mapping signed off by stakeholders, the British Gas design system is used to progress into UI design. Starting mobile-first, the focus is on clarity, speed and accessibility.
Designing within system constraints ensures consistency while allowing the experience to prioritise the most critical steps for users under pressure.
Landing page
A dedicated landing page is designed to sit within the existing estate, helping funnel prospects into the new boiler journey.
It acts as a clear entry point, aligning with current brand guidelines while guiding users toward relevant content, eligibility checks and conversion opportunities without disrupting the wider site structure.
Design
Shaping the experience to deliver clarity and delight
User interface design
With the journey mapping signed off by stakeholders, the British Gas design system is used to progress into UI design. Starting mobile-first, the focus is on clarity, speed and accessibility.
Designing within system constraints ensures consistency while allowing the experience to prioritise the most critical steps for users under pressure.
Landing page
A dedicated landing page is designed to sit within the existing estate, helping funnel prospects into the new boiler journey.
It acts as a clear entry point, aligning with current brand guidelines while guiding users toward relevant content, eligibility checks and conversion opportunities without disrupting the wider site structure.
Design
Shaping the experience to deliver clarity and delight
User interface design
With the journey mapping signed off by stakeholders, the British Gas design system is used to progress into UI design. Starting mobile-first, the focus is on clarity, speed and accessibility.
Designing within system constraints ensures consistency while allowing the experience to prioritise the most critical steps for users under pressure.
Landing page
A dedicated landing page is designed to sit within the existing estate, helping funnel prospects into the new boiler journey.
It acts as a clear entry point, aligning with current brand guidelines while guiding users toward relevant content, eligibility checks and conversion opportunities without disrupting the wider site structure.
Prototype
Crafting an accessible, mobile-first journey using system components and rapid iteration
Prototype
Crafting an accessible, mobile-first journey using system components and rapid iteration
Test & launch
Validating design to ensure meaningful impact
Prototype testing
Participants interact with clickable prototypes in a usability lab. Light touch warm-ups helped ease them in and surface natural behaviours early.
Capturing insight
Recording feedback and behavioural cues to understand where users struggled, hesitated or felt unsure - revealing friction points in the journey.
Observation
Colleagues observed sessions live from a viewing room, noting patterns, pain points and usability challenges as they unfolded.
Synthesis
Collaborative debrief with insights clustered into themes and refinements prioritised based on recurring issues and user needs.
Test & launch
Validating design to ensure meaningful impact
Prototype testing
Participants interact with clickable prototypes in a usability lab. Light touch warm-ups helped ease them in and surface natural behaviours early.
Capturing insight
Recording feedback and behavioural cues to understand where users struggled, hesitated or felt unsure - revealing friction points in the journey.
Observation
Colleagues observed sessions live from a viewing room, noting patterns, pain points and usability challenges as they unfolded.
Synthesis
Collaborative debrief with insights clustered into themes and refinements prioritised based on recurring issues and user needs.
Test & launch
Validating design to ensure meaningful impact
Prototype testing
Participants interact with clickable prototypes in a usability lab. Light touch warm-ups helped ease them in and surface natural behaviours early.
Capturing insight
Recording feedback and behavioural cues to understand where users struggled, hesitated or felt unsure - revealing friction points in the journey.
Observation
Colleagues observed sessions live from a viewing room, noting patterns, pain points and usability challenges as they unfolded.
Synthesis
Collaborative debrief with insights clustered into themes and refinements prioritised based on recurring issues and user needs.
Carl Hattley
UX Design Ops Manager, Centrica
"Chris was an absolute pleasure to work with. He’s one of those guys that you can talk to about anything.
One of Chris’s highlights was the work he did with the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers (RIDC). Chris visited the homes of our disabled customers and conducted Ethnographic user testing on new journeys and propositions. This was a first for Centrica and Chris was instrumental in driving and advocating the value of inclusive design to the wider business.
Chris was incredibly collaborative with the wider design community. Always doing what he can to support/inspire members of the team and add traction to global initiatives.
Chris had a way of building bridges across teams and disciplines. I hope to work with Chris again very soon."
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