The bill was just the beginning

PN: What would you say is the mission behind Scottish Power’s approach to customer communication?

TM: For me, it comes down to helping customers understand the information that matters most to them. At ScottishPower, we talk about putting the customer at the heart of everything we do, and customer communications are a big part of that. If customers can’t quickly understand what we’re telling them, we’ve not done our job properly.

That’s why the Plain Numbers Method feels like such a natural fit for ScottishPower. It helps us turn complex information into something that’s clear, accessible and actionable. It’s not about making things simpler by taking away information that matters to the customer. It’s about presenting information in a way that makes sense to customers and helps them make informed choices.

PN: What was the trigger for getting trained?

TM: The biggest catalyst was our customers. We could see from our own research that our customers didn’t always find our bills easy to understand, and our ease of understanding scores showed there was definitely room for improvement. Customers were telling us they wanted clearer explanations and simpler language, especially when it came to understanding charges and how their bill had been calculated.

We wanted to do something meaningful about that, so we partnered with Plain Numbers. The approach really resonated with us because it focuses on helping people understand information, not just read it. The bill became the starting point for that journey because it’s one of the most important communications we send to customers.

I’d wanted to improve the cash bill for a long time, but before Plain Numbers I wasn’t entirely sure how to approach it. What makes perfect sense to me, as someone who works with bills every day, doesn’t necessarily make sense to a customer seeing it for the first time. The Plain Numbers Method gave me a practical, evidence-based framework for looking at the bill through the customer’s eyes, so once I’d been trained, rewriting it felt like a no-brainer

PN: Was there a moment during training where something clicked or surprised you?

TM: There were so many facts that surprised me, but the one that really stayed with me was learning that around half of UK adults have numeracy skills expected of a primary school child. It was a statistic that really stopped me in my tracks because so much of what we communicate in the energy industry is built around numbers, costs, charges and calculations. We’re asking customers to interpret complex information, understand what it means for them, and then make the right choices based on it.

If customers struggle to understand that information, it’s not a customer problem, it’s a communication challenge for us. The research behind the Plain Numbers Method and the evidence showing how people interact with numbers was genuinely eye-opening.

There were also some brilliant real-life examples that brought the Method to life. I remember seeing a redesigned water bill and thinking, “Why don’t all bills look like this?” The difference in clarity and usability was striking.

What really clicked for me was that Plain Numbers isn’t about dumbing things down or removing important information. It’s about helping people understand information quickly and confidently. Once I saw those examples, I started looking at our own communications in a completely different way and thinking about how we could apply the same principles to our customer bills and beyond.

PN: Is there anything you now look at in a different way because of the training?

TM: Short answer – everything! I really don’t think I can switch it off anymore! Plain Numbers has completely changed the way I think about communication. Whether I’m working on a customer bill, reviewing a webpage or even writing an email to a colleague, I’m always thinking about how easy it is for someone to understand and act on the information I’ve given.

The training has also given me the confidence to challenge things I might previously have accepted. If something feels overly complicated or creates unnecessary effort for customers, I’ll ask why we’re doing it that way and whether there’s a better approach.

For me, Plain Numbers is no longer something I apply to specific projects. It’s become part of how I approach every communication. Once you’ve seen the difference it can make, it’s hard to look at things any other way.

PN: Can you tell me about the process of rewriting the bill?  

TM: The first rewrite was a real learning experience for me. At the time, I felt I’d already made some significant improvements, but the feedback from our Plain Numbers’s Partnership Manager, Doug Little-Bennett showed me there was still more I could do. He challenged me to think even more carefully about the customer’s experience, the order information appeared in, whether customers could quickly find what they needed, and whether I was providing enough context to help them understand the numbers.

I always felt comfortable asking for more support. In fact, that was one of the best parts of the experience. I could test ideas, ask questions, share revised versions and get further feedback whenever I needed it. It felt much more like a partnership than a review process. What I loved most was that every round of feedback made the bill better. It never felt like criticism; it felt like collaboration.

PN: Were there things you couldn’t change?

TM: Absolutely. Energy bills are highly regulated communications, so there were many elements we simply couldn’t remove or change. We also had to work within existing system constraints and make sure the bill still aligned with ScottishPower’s brand and regulatory requirements.

What I found refreshing was that Plain Numbers never saw those things as barriers. Instead, they helped me think differently about how the information could be presented. It wasn’t about removing important content; it was about improving the structure, providing better context and making the information easier for customers to find and understand.

The end result is a bill that still contains all the information it needs to but presents it in a much clearer and more customer-friendly way. That’s what gave me confidence that Plain Numbers could work even in a highly regulated environment like energy billing.

PN: What did unlimited support let you do that you wouldn’t have tried with a one-off rewrite?

TM: The unlimited support gave me the confidence to keep testing, refining and challenging my own thinking. Each round of feedback helped me understand the approach more deeply and apply it better to the next version.

Could I have done it on my own? Oh, hell no. I might have improved the bill, but I don’t think I would have achieved the same result. The training gave me the knowledge, and the ongoing support helped me put that knowledge into practice. That’s what made the real difference.

PN:  How has your own confidence or approach to producing customer comms changed since training?

TM: My confidence has grown enormously. In fact, I’ve become a bit of the unofficial Plain Numbers go-to expert, or as some colleagues would say, the “poster girl” for Plain Numbers, and I wear that title with pride.

What the training gave me wasn’t just a new set of skills, it gave me the confidence to challenge the way we’ve always done things. If something feels unnecessarily complicated, whether it’s a customer communication, a presentation or even an email to colleagues, I’ll ask myself: “Could this be clearer?”

I find myself applying Plain Numbers thinking everywhere now, not just in customer communications. I regularly offer support and advice to colleagues across different teams, helping them simplify messages and avoid the industry language that we often use without thinking. When you work in an industry every day, it’s easy to forget that customers don’t have the same knowledge or context that we do.

For me, that’s the real value of Plain Numbers. It encourages us to step into the customer’s shoes and see communications from their perspective. Once you start doing that, it’s hard to go back to the old way of thinking.

PN: Has Plain Numbers supported you to embed the Method into Scottish Power’s organisational culture?

TM: Yes, I believe it has. We’ve only been working with Plain Numbers for a little over two years, so we’re still on that journey, but I can already see a difference in the conversations we’re having. More people are challenging jargon, thinking about customer understanding and asking whether communications are as clear as they could be.

I don’t think we’re at the point where I’d say the approach is fully embedded across the organisation, but we’re definitely travelling in the right direction. The fact that colleagues are increasingly seeking advice, sharing ideas and applying Plain Numbers thinking outside of billing communications is a really positive sign. For me, that’s how lasting change starts.

Learn more about ScottishPower’s new cash bill, rewritten using the Plain Numbers Method, here