Building Behavioural Science Capability at SSE/OVO

Embedding behavioural science across customer experience teams

The Challenge

Following the merger of SSE and OVO Energy, the newly combined organisation wanted to embed behavioural science across its customer experience teams. The CX leadership team was responsible for improving experiences across:

• contact centres
• customer communications
• collections journeys.

While behavioural science interventions had already demonstrated their potential, the organisation needed a way to ensure these approaches could be sustained and applied consistently across the business. SSE OVO partnered with Cowry to build internal behavioural science capability within the organisation.

Our approach

Cowry designed and delivered a six-week behavioural science learning programme using content from the Cowry Academy. The programme combined structured learning with practical application, enabling participants to immediately apply behavioural science principles to real business challenges.

Participants from the SSE OVO experience team worked through a series of training modules designed to build both knowledge and practical capability. The programme also encouraged cross-team collaboration to ensure behavioural insights could be applied across different parts of the customer journey.

Behavioural insight

Scaling behavioural science within organisations often fails when insights remain isolated within specialist teams. Without a shared understanding of behavioural principles, teams struggle to translate insights into practical design decisions. Training programmes therefore need to focus not just on theory, but on practical application within real organisational challenges.

By building a common behavioural framework, organisations can:

The solution

Cowry delivered training through the Cowry Academy, an award-winning behavioural science learning programme delivered both virtually and in person.

The Academy includes three levels of capability development.

Core E-Learning – Designed for those new to behavioural science, the Core programme introduces the key psychological principles that influence decision making and behaviour.

Expert Training – The Expert programme provides deeper training through a structured six-week programme combining virtual and classroom learning. Participants apply behavioural science to real organisational challenges and develop the skills required to design behavioural interventions.

Practitioner Programme – The Practitioner programme supports organisations in running their own behavioural science experiments, with tailored coaching to help teams apply behavioural science across their business.

Through this programme, Cowry trained members of the SSE OVO experience team to become behavioural science champions within the organisation.

Impact:

The programme created a shared behavioural science language across the SSE OVO experience teams.

Participants were able to apply behavioural principles to real projects, including:

• co-designing contact centre experiences
• redesigning collections customer journeys
• improving the quality of behavioural briefs across the organisation.

As behavioural science capability grew internally, the partnership between SSE OVO and Cowry expanded into new areas of the business.