Co-Creation Sparks Tangible Results

Design Group Italia has supported E.ON Drive in creating a unique direction and vision across Europe with eMobility solutions tailored to customer needs 

Context

E.ON Group, one of Europe’s largest energy network and infrastructure operators and a provider of innovative customer solutions has chosen eMobility for one of its strategic growth fields.
In a rapidly expanding and evolving market like eMobility, we worked together to bring go-to-market strategy and product-service offerings for private electric vehicle charging solutions to the next level.

Boasting an extremely rich portfolio in a strong competitive market, E.ON set out to sharpen its elements in order to stand out through differentiation.
The goal was to design an integrated charging solution ecosystem capable of covering all customer needs both at home and on the road, integrating eMobility solutions and services into a broader ecosystem, where smart energy use is a central focus.
E.ON Drive’s ecosystem fully embraces the green path of energy transition, leveraging green energy offers tailored to customer needs and boosting energy independence with solar production at home.

“Our go-to-market strategy design has brought together many colleagues and designers from different countries with one clear scope: making eMobility radically simple for our customers. Co-design, co-challenge and early customer validation allowed us to build a strong story and vision which is guiding our strategy in the business, bringing our eMobility solutions to the next level in all E.ON Drive markets.”

Laura Casolo Ginelli
Global Senior Solution Manager
E.ON Drive

Challenges

• First, to make E.ON Drive’s charging promise meaningful for users.
  We created a position statement that leveraged the integrated and complete green energy offer – defining a bundling approach unlocking additional value for customers: home charger, green energy contract, smart and solar charging, and public charging solutions all come together in a modular ecosystem that adapts to customers needs.

• Second, to develop an entry point strategy that would attract and engage customers.
  We prototyped the conversion flow from “awareness” to “subscription” to create a modular offer that allows customers to receive guidance while ensuring flexibility around E.ON Drive’s array of solutions universe,  incorporating up-selling and cross-selling logics.

• Last but not least, we placed customers first and spoke their language to convey the value of the global charging promise.
  We tested the prototype in different countries to understand the perceived value and adapted that offer to local needs. The project involved colleagues and customers in the UK, Italy, Germany and Sweden, from international co-creation sessions to qualitative and quantitative testing for validation with local users. An overall storytelling approach was co-created around solutions, services, and the customer experience of the charging promise, always considering the local market needs. The key offerings within the private drivers’ charging promise were defined with sufficient space for regional adaptations, ensuring a match with customer needs, market trends and competitor analysis.

“As service and digital product designers, we understand the power of co-creation and bringing together diverse perspectives to accelerate the design process and drive tangible results. Through our approach with E.ON, we were able to foster commitment from stakeholders at all levels, while providing reassurance for future investments to deploy the solutions.”

Mathilde Leroy
Service Designer Lead
Design Group Italia

Key Takeaways

With this project, we understood that great synergies can arise from adopting a holistic approach valuing creation at different levels.

From a business perspective, eMobility solutions in a complete ecosystem, rather than their stand-alone counterparts, are strategic levers within a business model focused on smart and efficient energy use.

From a user perspective, the integrated offering approach allows E.ON Drive to act as a unique reference point for its customers, increasing loyalty while also providing customers with a simplified, personalized experience allowing them to save energy and money. We also realized that building an international customer experience and offering portfolio model — which can be localized on the specific country level — can accelerate endorsement and make corporate investments even more effective.

Project duration: 2022, March — October.