SoCalGas

The Challenge

SoCalGas uses its website to educate customers about a wide variety of services and programs. But inconsistent navigation and unnecessary content were making it hard for users to find and access important information, leading to more work for their customer service department. Like many large organizations, their external-facing digital experience was structured to match their internal departments and business silos, rather than their user’s needs.

The Insight

In watching unmoderated user interviews, it quickly became clear that customers were having a difficult time completing key tasks due to a lack of information hierarchy and prioritization. Sure, the website made it easy to learn about the company’s community service efforts and their commitment to safety – but that’s not what everyday customers came to the website to do. They came to complete a task and get on with their day.

The Work

After completing an extensive discovery period that included user interviews, customer surveys, and a review of internal analytics, we put together an initial list of top tasks that customers were coming to the website to complete. And while we couldn’t predict the needs of every user, we found that a large percentage of customers were coming for a relatively small set of tasks.

Having data on what users were coming to do most frequently allowed us to pair down unnecessary content, standardize page templates, and update the global navigation to better align with user needs. This allowed them to streamline the experience and help customers get what they needed from the website. And to ensure that all content spoke in a clear, consistent voice, I worked with their editorial team to create a style guide to help content creators and editors stay on the same page.