product deprecation: multiple cohorts

When Arcadia decided to end their Wind Renewable Energy Credit program, there were several cohorts of customers to whom they needed to communicate this news — twelve, to be exact!

I wrote all versions of the comms, documenting the variants in my Figma design with annotations regarding the different written sections that each cohort would need. I worked directly with product managers and marketers to ensure that this news was communicated effectively and as concisely as possible.

billing experience migration

One of the most complex elements of community solar subscription management is the billing experience. At Arcadia, there were three different experiences a subscriber could have: “Arcadia Consolidated Billing,” where they only pay Arcadia for both the solar and non-solar portions of their energy expenses each month; “Utility Consolidated Billing,” where they only pay their utility; and “Dual Billing” where they pay Arcadia for the solar portion of their power bill but pay their utility for the non-solar portion of their power bill.

I wrote these comms for a large-scale migration, where all New Jersey customers had to be put on Utility Consolidated Billing. That meant I had to communicate urgent, sensitive information to thousands of customers (both residential and commercial) across eight cohorts, depending on their initial billing style and stage of subscription. I also wrote reminder emails for subscribers initially placed on Arcadia Consolidated Billing, since these cohorts had to take immediate action to set up payment directly with their utility.

I worked with a large team of product, operations, marketing, design, and legal team members to create these detailed communications. After the emails were coded, I also checked through each version for quality assurance. Once email comms were locked in, I also created complementary letter versions to mail to certain cohorts to maximize their comprehension.

invoicing error: solution comms

Because community solar billing is so complicated, the Arcadia team found themselves needing to send subscribers catch-up invoices from time to time. I wrote a series of templates for these comms, varying by the number of invoices that Arcadia needed to send the customer. In these emails, I needed to concisely communicate sensitive information about multiple unexpected bills that customers needed to prepare for.

I needed to note that the invoicing catch-up was due to a delay in energy usage data reports sent by the customer’s utility — providing clarity on the reason for the error without jeopardizing Arcadia’s relationship with any utility partner. I also needed to remind customers of their billing style, which they may have limited understanding of based on the product’s “set it and forget it” experience. It was important that customers understood that these invoices were not extra bills, but rather regular charges that Arcadia had not been able to process as originally scheduled. Finally, I needed to emphasize Arcadia’s flexibility on payment date to make sure that each customer knew they could adapt for earlier or delayed charges.

UPDATES ENGAGEMENT PUSH

Arcadia had made some optimizations to the dashboard experience for their relatively new small-to-medium business cohort within the community solar program.

The team wanted to use the opportunity to create an exciting moment around the update announcement, hoping to boost engagement within the user dashboard.