Giving E.ON promoters something worth sharing
Client: E.ON
Year: 2020
Role: project lead — strategy, methodology, stakeholder alignment, hands-on delivery
Livework team: me, a mid and a junior service designer
E.ON team: 2 global and 2 regional Customer experience managers + 15 extended team members
How it started
Each year, E.ON receives hundreds of thousands of NPS surveys with 9 or 10/10 from customers who, on paper, said they'd recommend E.ON. They wanted to create a central activation approach that could be used by market CX teams to turn those scores into brand advocacy, cross/upsells and value creation.
E.ON's assumption was that dormant promoters just needed a nudge or an incentive. Simple enough? Except the premise was wrong.
The 13 Interviews we ran in the UK and Italy told us otherwise.
A 9 or 10 right after a good call ≠ promotion
Most interviewees couldn’t remember the score that got them into the room. Only two actually recommended E.ON.
NPS doesn't measure behaviour — it measures theoretical intent or satisfaction in the moment.
Utilities don’t really come up in conversations
Utilities is not a subject that even promoters connect with or find interesting. Promotion happens reactively — when there's a crisis, when someone asks.
“I don't talk about the fact I am an E.ON customer. Is energy exciting? Not it is not.” (UK)
Credible promotion happens off-script
Genuine promotion happens in private channels — harder to measure, but far more credible than anything broadcasted for a referral fee.
“A friendship is too big to sell out for a £10 reward.” (UK)
The strategic reframe: don't ask people to talk about E.ON. Give them content and causes they already want to talk about — and let E.ON be the vehicle, not the subject.
From the research, we produced a modular activation framework. Combining ingredients intelligently allows to design interventions relevant for different markets and contexts.
Varying motivations to tap into
Lifecycle stages: Find the right moment to engage
Topics: Values driven topics drive more engagement
E.ON's 100% renewable energy is unknown to customers — lost in a landscape saturated with green claims nobody trusts anymore. E.ON has something most companies don't: real credentials, partnerships and concrete community programmes, not just talks.
Type of activation activities
Defining success, crafting interventions and picking the ones most likely to deliver
I clarified pathways to desired outcomes, hypotheses and what success looks like.
Increase customer value
Hypothesis By engaging promoters, we further develop their relationship with E.ON, which makes they stay longer and/or buy more.
Brand advocacy & acquisition
Hypothesis: Further engaging promoters increase word of mouth, brand reputation and therefore support customer acquisition.
Working with Italy as the pilot market, we fleshed out 9 concepts, to which I added behavioural economics levers
We selected two for immediate trial based on effort-to-impact ratio, capabilities readiness and research signals strength.
Designing trials together to create momentum and equip teams to take ownership and make them happen
Trial 1: Engage to give
E.ON partners with environmental organisations (e.g. Legambiente in Italy) to produce sustainability content that promoters can engage with and share. Each share or interaction earns points that translate as donations.
Even promoters will only engage or share brand content that aligns with what they care about and puts them in a good light with their peers. Utilities won’t cut it but the environment and e-mobility will, especially while supporting the cause.
Impact
Both concepts were successfully trialled in Italy. The framework was designed for scale from day one — modular, market-agnostic, adoptable by local CX teams across seven countries without rebuilding from scratch.
The bigger shift was strategic: E.ON came in looking for an activation solution. Our research shifted to creating conditions for advocacy. You can't nudge people into talking about something they don't find interesting. You have to give them something worth sharing.