Researching an Assistance Program's Applicants

A utility's assistance program helps low-income households manage their energy bills, but the team responsible for the digital experience around that program had little direct research into how customers actually experienced applying for and tracking assistance. Much of the roadmap thinking was happening without firsthand input from the people the program was meant to serve.

As part of a small, focused research team, I helped make the case for doing direct research with this customer segment in the first place, since qualitative research with a vulnerable, lower-tech-comfort audience wasn't the default approach the broader team reached for. I helped develop the interview approach, conducted qualitative interviews with both applicants and program administrators, and worked with the team to analyze what we heard. Part of the work was defending a slower, more deliberate research process against a delivery cadence that wasn't built for it.

The clearest finding across both customer and administrator interviews was a lack of visibility into application status. Applicants had no reliable way to know where their application stood, which led directly to a pattern of phone calls and in-person visits to check in, adding friction for people already navigating a stressful financial situation.

That finding directly shaped a new feature: a status tracker that surfaces a customer's application status inside their existing account dashboard. The hypothesis was straightforward: giving customers direct visibility into their own status would reduce the need to call in or visit in person, and create a calmer, more transparent experience during an already difficult time.

The ability to advocate for research as a practice, not just execute it when asked. Direct experience conducting sensitive interviews with a vulnerable audience with care. A clear line from a specific research finding to a shipped product decision.