esbie.ie

ESB Independent Energy - New phase, new site

A Company within the ESB Group, ESB Independent Energy (ESBIE) was established in 2000 to offer an alternative supply service to Industrial, Commercial and Business energy users on the island of Ireland, with a continued investment in a variety of power sources and renewable technologies.

ESBIE had developed a web site some years ago, but with the growth of the company and it’s customer base, it was felt the existing site could do more to service the online needs of existing customers and convey the advantages of ESBIE to potential new customers.

Understanding the subtle shift

The existing site was working well for the company in that there was a rich amount of information about their services, background and people. However the company had moved on and the site wasn’t catering for the needs of it’s existing customers, services like, information on billing, access to some account details, graphing of energy usage and online requests and applications needed to be added. Similarly to offering to existing customers need to be be less general, and more exacting detail on becoming a customer and the specific advantages were needed, along with being able to easily sign-up for things on-line.
Finally the site need an overhaul in terms of esthetic design, usability and most importantly navigation give the large amount of information on the site.

Sketching out esbie.ie phase II

The first area to tackle was the site map. We felt that restructuring this would bring a logic and flow to the site and the esthetics and wireframe structure would follow from there. We spent some time working with ESBIE to simpfly the content and to eliminate some duplication. The next line of attack would be the navigation, the main sections were redefined and moved to the top, with the sub navigation on the side, and the site design followed accordingly. The front page would act as a clear landing page with sections for existing customers, visitors and new customers clearly flagged. Popular areas of the site, such as access to downloadable forms and account information were made easily findable from the front page.

Building esbie.ie

The site was designed with a fresher more approachable look. The main navigation was greatly simplified and main sections were colour coded in line with existing ESBIE practice and lititure. The most sought after links were promoted on the front of the site, and the site was given a more ‘customer service’ personality compared to the original site. Working with ESBIE, we devloped easy to use sign-up online forms, a digital version of their monthly newsletter and remodeld the interface to the customer account pages. We also developed animated banners and content to promote services, offers and drive traffic to other parts of the site.
The result was a brighter, more user friendly site that was appealing to users and did the job of both servicing and attracting customers alike.

Keeping an eye on esbie.ie

esbie.ie was built using best SEO prcatice and it’s usage is monitored. In conjuction with ESBIE we make continious tweaks and updates to the site, as well as suggesting new ideas to ensure it’s continued success.