Back in August 2017, @“Will at Bulb” wrote a blog post explaining our Open Road Map.
If you’ve not come across it before, it’s a roadmap of all the current and future projects at Bulb. It’s also a place to add your ideas and vote for things you’d like us to work on.
You can read more about how the Open Road Map works on our blog post. Or better still, just head straight to the Road Map and dive in.
We’re holding up our hands. Don’t shoot.
If you’ve not heard already, we’re Britain’s fastest growing energy company. And we’re working around the clock to make energy simpler, cheaper, greener.
At times we’ve been so zealous that we haven’t paused to let you know what’s been going on at Bulb.
We’ve updated our Open Road Map infrequently and taken your ideas from Community on an adhoc basis. We’re sorry about that.
We’re going to be doing things differently.
But we’re going to change that. And here’s the steps we’re taking:
- We’ll be updating the Open Road Map once a month.
Bulb’s Head of Product, Geraldine, and I will be sitting down to add new projects and reshuffle the roadmap based on our progress and your feedback.
- We’ll post about the changes on Community.
These posts will highlight:
- New projects that have been added to the Roadmap
- Products that have been moved into the ‘done’ section
- Your suggestions that we will and won’t be building (and the reason why).
Got an idea for Bulb?
Ideas like the referral programme and paying your exit fees have come from you.
If you post an idea on Community, we’ll pop it on the Open Road Map. I’ll take your ideas to Geraldine each month and if we think you’ve come up with a game changer (or just a good idea) we’ll move it along the roadmap and build it.
Why not get the ball rolling and post your idea below?
OPEN ROAD MAP UPDATE
Disclaimer: We’ve got a lot of projects on the go so we can’t talk about everything. But here’s some stuff that we’re particularly excited about.
Things we’ve done:
Payments in app.
@Tom A at Bulb posted on Community to let you know about changes to the Bulb account app. If you pay by direct debit, you can now change the payment date, the amount, and even the bank your paying from on the go.
Give loyal members something on their Bulbiversary.
This has been one of the hottest topics on Community over the past few months. There’s been a mixed response but on the whole, our members liked it.
Things we’re currently working on:
Installing second-generation smart meters
We’ve started installing smart meters for members on our Smart Meter waiting list. We’ll be ramping up the number of installations throughout the year. Right now, we’re inviting members in areas with good network coverage and well-trained engineers. These areas will expand throughout 2019, so if you’ve not been invited to book just yet, your time will come!
Improve address matching
Currently, finding your address from the drop-down menu when signing up to Bulb can be difficult. Our new address matching tool will make finding your home easier and we’ll see fewer members selecting the incorrect address. Overall it will reduce the number of errors before switching and make switching even simpler.
Automate meter readings sent as photo’s or text messages
Lots of you send us pictures of your meter readings. We’re building some clever models that will recognise the numbers shown on your meters. This cuts down the time we spend manually adding meter readings to your account. And it frees up time to answer your calls and emails.
Your ideas:
As @mowcius pointed out, ideas previously on the ‘Ideas’ section of the Open Road Map have been removed.
No, we’ve not sent them into oblivion. But because they’ve been on the roadmap for a while, we’ve done one of two things:
- Linked them to other projects
- Moved them to the ‘done’ section.
If you’re looking for inspiration here are some suggestions that have previously been added to the Open Road Map ideas list.
National ‘heat map’ of Bulb-ers.
MOVED TO DONE
We loved this idea. In fact, we loved it so much we had a go. Beth from our Data Team made a map of the density of Bulb members by postcode. It was interesting but just didn’t look quite right. The reason for this was that census data was just too old. Come back to us in two years time (when the next census is complete) and we’ll be able to make more accurate maps.
Opt-out-ability for confirmation emails
MOVED TO NEW TICKET
This was a suggestion from @mowcious. We agree, not everyone wants meter reading reminders every month. Instead, we’ll be giving our members the option to set up reminders at the frequency they want.
But we can’t stop the confirmation of payment emails. This is a regulatory requirement. We’ll just keep them as short and sweet as we can.
We’ll update you again in March!
