By sending out cleverly designed communications to households and comparing their energy usage to that of their neighbors, Opower helped consumers realize when they were wasting more energy than their frugal neighbors. As a result, some people started to cut their energy use and save on their utility bills while others maintained their efficient energy use.
To date, Opower has harnessed the influence of social pressure, amongst other tools in behavioral design, to help consumers save an astounding 20 Terawatt-hours or millions of megawatts. To put that in context, in 2008, all the different types of energy that humans used amounted to 16.5 Terawatt-hours. Opower has since been acquired by Oracle for $532 million. Here’s the original and now famous social comparisons research by Schultz’ and colleagues that inspired Opower.
The modern, online banking service, Monzo, draws upon simple behavioral interventions to help people save more money. For example, the banking app lets customers switch on a “gambling block” - a 48 hour wait before they can use their card at casinos. This small amount of friction helps customers reconsider their spending choices.
Monzo users that switch on the gambling block demonstrate a 70% reduction in their gambling and as of 2020, almost 223,000 customers have enabled this feature. In light of Monzo’s success, traditional banks such as Barclays, Lloyds, and Santander have followed suit with similar features.
The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) worked with a UK police force to simplify and redesign an existing letter and leaflet sent to drivers with speeding offenses. The new leaflet focused on why speed limits exist and the real dangers of breaking them. These small tweaks in communications led to a 20% reduction in reoffending and greater penalty payments.
In addition to saving lives and reducing injuries from speeding accidents, BIT estimates that their behavioral intervention will save £1.5 million each year for the West Midlands criminal justice system.
Researchers worked with a Colombian bank, Bancamía, to offer their loan officers timely reminders and small, in-kind prizes, such as a movie ticket, to bring in new clients earlier in the month. Officers responded to these behavioral interventions by redistributing their workload and generally improving their productivity, with an uptick of 18% in sourcing new loans during the first two weeks of the month.
Partnering with our very own co-founder, Rob Metcalfe, and his research colleagues, Virgin Atlantic sent personalized feedback and goals to their highly trained and experienced captains once a month in the post. By nudging captains to make more fuel-efficient decisions, when possible, Virgin Atlantic saved $6.1 million in fuel costs and 24,000 tons of CO2 in just 8 months. Our white paper describes the study in more detail.
Signol began in aviation, but we are adapting our platform to tackle other high-emissions industries, including shipping and road transport. Our behavioral science techniques shine light on the human aspect of operational decision-making and help companies address the dual challenge of high operating costs and high greenhouse gas emissions. Find out what we can do for you.
About Signol
Signol is a software platform that draws on insights from behavioral economics to encourage employees to make more efficient decisions. Signol provides personalized feedback through multiple communication channels, as well as data analysis for managers. In aviation, Signol aims to use behavioral "nudges" and incentives to reduce pollution and fuel waste and cut operating costs.
Software using behavioral economics and data science to cut fuel waste and save firms millions of dollars.
