Project Partners: Oxfordshire County Council, Growth Guides and NEF
Excerpt: City Science designs end-to-end customer journeys, develops digital platforms with tools like suitability assessments and CRMs, creates educational content, implements holistic community engagement strategies, offers innovative financing models, partners with contractors for surveying, and streamlines grid connection processes – enabling comprehensive one-stop shops.
Overview: The Home Efficiency Hub – Heat Pumps for Cherwell Project, funded by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s Heat Pump Ready programme aimed to create a comprehensive one-stop shop to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps and low-carbon heating solutions within local communities. Our key focus was carefully designing and documenting end-to-end customer journeys across all phases – from initial awareness to installation, commissioning, and ongoing maintenance.
Testimonial: Liz Karaiskos, Project Delivery Manager: “We thoroughly enjoyed working alongside City Science in developing the innovative heat pump ready initiative. Whilst the project didn’t take off like we all hoped it would, the initial set up right through to the coordination stage was made easy through City Science’s great organisation, professionalism and expertise. This was achieved through close collaboration between several different stakeholders, all facilitated by City Science. Their great work with outreach and engagement with the local Oxfordshire community made the customer journey smooth from start to finish.”
This included:
- Carefully designing and documenting the full end-to-end customer onboarding and journey workflows across key phases like initial awareness and interest, home suitability evaluation, installation and commissioning, and ongoing monitoring/maintenance. This also involved drafting detailed customer contracts to clearly establish responsibilities, expectations and terms of service.
- Developing a feature-rich digital platform incorporating a suitability assessment tool, customer portals, CRM systems, databases, analytics, and partner integrations.
- Creating a wide range of high-quality website content including, user guides, tutorial videos, compelling case studies showcasing satisfied customers, and persuasive sales/marketing collateral, ensuring consistent branding and messaging.
- Implementing a holistic community engagement strategy centred around awareness building, education and trust. This included hosting events like workshops and webinars, demonstrations of the technology, and integrated marketing campaigns leveraging digital advertising, social media, PR, events and traditional channels.
- Introducing a unique financing model in collaboration with Hiber finance to reduce upfront costs for consumers, enhancing the overall customer experience.
- Assisting contractors (Carbon Rewind) in developing home survey reports and efficiency plans through partnership with Growth Guides.
- Analysing grid capacity constraints and energy demands, informing the design of streamlined processes to handle grid connection applications efficiently
Outcomes:
By leveraging the comprehensive support and tailored strategies offered through our Net Zero Partnerships, local authorities can create efficient and effective one-stop shops that serve as centralised hubs for promoting and facilitating the transition to net zero communities.