Clear requirements before you start
I made the requirements clear at the start of the journey, so people wouldn’t go through several steps before finding out they weren’t eligible. The responses feel like part of a conversation rather than a form to fill in.
Saying no, transparently
Turning away a potential customer isn’t easy, but being transparent is essential to avoid wasting anyone’s time, including the team’s. With “I’m afraid this is where we part ways”, I wanted to communicate the limitation directly without losing the brand’s tone of voice.
What you need, before you begin
Before getting started, I explained how long the process would take, what information people would need and where to find it. The goal was to reduce interruptions during activation.
One question, three details
Three things to distinguish in a single question: the supply address, the registered address and the account holder. To make the options easier to understand, I echoed part of the question in the responses, making them clearer than a simple “Yes” or “No”. Sometimes, an extra word in the interface means one less thing for the user to think about.
An estimate for those who don’t know
The onboarding flow asked people to enter their annual energy consumption in kWh, a figure not everyone knows. For those who didn’t have a bill at hand, we offered a way to estimate it using more familiar information: the size of their home and the number of people living there. Less accurate, but enough to move forward.
A limitation becomes a value
Paying by postal payment slip wasn’t an option, and this limitation needed to be communicated clearly. I connected it to Tate’s commitment to reducing paper waste, alongside a practical benefit of automatic payments. With “Sounds good to me”, people aren’t simply acknowledging the decision: they’re also given a chance to identify with the values behind it.
Consent in the user’s voice
Instead of the usual consent statement written from the company’s perspective, I wrote it in the user’s own voice: “While I’m at it…”. Even a secondary choice, such as opting in to marketing communications, can reflect Tate’s tone of voice.
