First Utility Broadband
Experiance Designer (Lead)
Energy / Telecoms
Head of Telco Head of Brand
Overview
First Utility wanted to grow broadband sales through its existing customer base, but despite strong traffic and clear purchase intent, the journey converted as just 2%.
The assumption was that the interface needed improving. Research revealed something different. Customers couldn't confidently choose a plan, couldn't book installation around their lives, and the business couldn't respond quickly enough to market opportunities.
Solving those three problems transformed broadband into a projected £7.2M annual revenue channel.
The Challange
Low conversion rates rarely have a single cause.
Some customers couldn't decide which package suited them, others were ready to buy but couldn't book installation when they needed it. Behind the scenes, every campaign required weeks of engineering effort before it could go live. The challenge wasn't redesigning a journey. It was uncovering what was actually stopping people from becoming customers.
The Solution
Rather than treating the project as a UI redesign, I approached it as product problem.
Research uncovered three connected barriers: speaking to customers like humans, redesigning booking around real-life behaviour, and giving the business a faster way to launch campaigns. Together, those changes improved both the customer experience and the way the business operated.
Keep It Simple
People don't buy broadband. They buy confidence.
Customers weren't struggling because broadband was confusing, they were struggling because our plans were. Instead of leading with technical specifications, I redesigned the experience around the questions people were already asking: Which plan is right for me?
Benefit-led language, clearer visual hierarchy and stronger differentiation made plans easier to compare at a glance, while a modular "Plus Points" framework allowed Marketing to test and evolve messaging without redesigning the interface.
The Missing Gap
Sometimes the biggest design problem isn't on the screen.
Research uncovered one of our highest-value audiences: people planning a house move. They wanted to secure installation weeks in advance, but the platform only allowed bookings within seven days. Rather than designing around the limitation, I built the business case for extending the booking API using customer behaviour, competitive analysis and revenue modelling.
Alongside the technical changes, I redesigned booking with a clearer calendar, precise appointment windows and a planning-first experience that matched how customers actually organise a move.
Building for speed
The redesign solved today's conversion problem, but I also wanted to solve tomorrow's.
Every marketing campaign required a bespoke build, slowing the business down. I created a modular campaign system that allowed Marketing to launch new pages in hours instead of weeks, while giving Engineering more time to focus on the product itself.
The Outcome
Over the following twelve months, broadband became one of First Utility's strongest growth channels.
broadband conversion
new broadband customers
£7.2M
projected annual recurring revenue
booking completion
2 weeks - 4 hours
campaign delivery time
Reflection
This project changed how I think about product design.
The original brief asked for a better onboarding journey. The real opportunity lay in product strategy, technical constraints and operational delivery problems that no visual redesign alone could solve.
It reinforced a principle I still apply today: good product design isn't about creating better screens. It's about finding the real problem, then solving it at the right level.