Why eBill consolidators will always fail

There has been a lot of press recently about yet another eBill consolidator start-up. What's different this time however is that they have generated enough hype to get the analysts excited and buying into the idea.

As far as we can see the user interface is pretty slick, but outside of that, it's seems to suffer from the same issues as all consolidators that we've seen before.

Let's start by defining eBilling success from the biller's point of view:

• Maximum customer satisfaction;
• Full control over the bill and delivery medium;
• A majority of electronic payment;
• Intelligent marketing capabilities;
• Mobile capable by default;
• Paper bill suppression

Every consumer biller we meet has these success criteria, and success is only achieved when these are all satisfied.

So why can't a consolidator model meet these requirements?

1. Attaining critical mass is simply impossible:
In order for a consolidation location to be successful, more than 50% of the consumer's bills should be there already when they arrive for the first time. In fact, 75% would be optimum. This is where the chicken and egg scenario begins. Billers won't come on board without consumers using the location and consumers won't sign up if the billers aren't there.

I live in arguably the most connected city in the USA and both my bank consolidator (BOA) and CheckFree can only offer me 2 of my 11 household bills. This is further exacerbated by the sheer size of the USA. A consolidator would need to literally sign up in excess of 10 000 billers to even get close to the 50%. This is quite simply impossible.

2. Registration / enrolment is a major barrier:
Approximately 55% to 75% of North American consumers are signed up for internet banking, have multiple email addresses and a Facebook account. As the biller direct self service portals have experienced, a maximum of 25% of consumers will register on their websites (and this takes 5 years to achieve). Of those, on average only a quarter will go paperless (5% to 9% of total customer base), unless paperless is a condition of registration-which does encourage paperless, but radically reduces enrolment.

What consumers don't want is yet another location to visit and register, as well as another username & password to remember.

Today, in the USA , most banks offer very efficient bill payment capability and as it takes less than two seconds to open a paper envelope to see my amount due or bill detail, what possible incentive could there be to make this experience 20 to 30 times less convenient?

3. Consolidators do not have biller control:
Bill delivery is directly linked to bill payment - most consumers will only pay their bills when they receive them. With paper,, billers have total control over the creation and posting of their bills. Similarly, by using their own websites along with notification emails, they achieve this (albeit to a much smaller audience). Having your bill available through a consolidation partner is 'outsourcing' this timing in many instances. Consumers may wait until they have more than one bill available at the consolidator website before choosing to login and view them.

4. The proof is in the end result - poor paper bill suppression:
Customer satisfaction is touted as the number one billing priority. Yet it is paper suppression that drives almost 100% of the eBilling cost savings. Without paper turn off you may as well not offer eBilling, as it then simply adds to your total billing costs. Consumers are happy to pay their bills through their internet banking.

In order to consider an eBilling program a paper suppression success, the biller needs to turn off a minimum of 10% paper per year, every year, up to 50% (it slows after this).

Consolidator solutions only achieve 3% paper suppression on average per year, and plateaux at approximately 12% at best (after 5 years).

5. Billers are not prepared to lose this key marketing touch point:
Unlike paper, inserting intelligent marketing into a self service portal is a significant challenge. Furthermore, it is only applicable to the minority of customers who choose to use the portal. This is even more so in the case of a consolidator website where billers effectively lose the ability to market to their consumers. As we all know, the bill is, in most instances, the biller's only touch point with the consumer. Are they prepared to lose this to go paperless? Over the past decade, all the billers that we have spoken to tell us they most definitely are not.

6. Not mobile ready:
The majority of consumers are not going to download an app or visit a mobile website just so the biller can turn off the paper bill. There is just no compelling reason for them to do so. So for any mobile strategy, to achieve paper suppression success, it has to be mobile ready by default: The recipient must be able to view their eBill on their mobile device without having to pre-register or download anything.


To sum up; it's not going to happen:

It is our view that no website based eBill consolidator will ever succeed in a market as large and diverse as the United States, no matter how large the hype or marketing budget. If the likes of Fiserv / CheckFree (after 8 years and almost unlimited budgets) cannot get it right, it's simply impossible that any start-up can, irrespective of a good UI and significant funding.

The only way billers (using the consolidator model) are going to get more than 30% of their customers paperless, is to make it mandatory and deal with the customer backlash - a strategy we strongly advise against.

The solution? It takes 4 fundamental changes:

1. Eliminate the registration barrier by offering intelligent one-click eConsent (no username & password to chose and remember).
2. Deliver the electronic bill directly to the consumer without requiring them to link back to any website, in a way that is also mobile device capable by default.
3. Include one-click electronic payment without the need to pre-register or visit any website.
4. Intelligently insert marking and regulatory notices - just like you do in the paper world, only at 95% less cost.

Most importantly... - do not ask the recipient to do anything to receive their eBill. If you think the above is impossible, ask a Striata expert today how it can be done.

If you're not segmenting, don't bother advertising - Improve your marketing in operational communications

A new global media report issued in October 2010 by Deloitte has revealed that online advertising is losing sway against more traditional advertising and appears to have only a minor influence on buying behaviour.

When a colleague first presented me with this fact, as written in an article of a well known South African newspaper, I refused to believe it. How is it possible that online advertising can have less impact than traditional advertising, which in many ways has lost its affect on the market through overexposure? Surely online advertising is naturally more targeted than traditional marketing? My naivety seems to have gotten the better of me. After digging a little deeper and paying closer attention to advertising online (which in fact proves the point that I was not taking note of online ads), it seems the majority of online marketing is not targeted at all.

So how does this relate to email?
It naturally follows the same line of thought. If you are including marketing material in your operational communications or sending purely marketing related messages to your customer base and not segmenting and targeting this base accordingly – you are wasting your time!

You have to employ a new strategy for digital advertising if you expect your customers to interact accordingly with your brand. Print and digital marketing are far removed from one another, yet the same methodology is applied by many marketers.

Know your customer & use appropriate trigger points
Create a Customer Lifecycle Management strategy that maps your customer's interactions with your company - from on boarding, management and retention through to the sometimes unavoidable possibility of your customer leaving. Each of these customer phases and the additional interactions they have with your company during this time provides you with vital trigger points, which will enable you to interact further with them, via email, SMS etc.

Every company representative that interacts with your customers has a responsibility to gather additional information. This can happen after the fact e.g. a text message sent to a customer asking them to rate your company's service, following an interaction with your call centre, or during the interaction e.g. asking a customer to participate in a poll or survey from within their monthly eStatement.

The feedback you receive from these interactions goes a long way. Not only will you get to know them better, but it will also give you more insight into their requirements from your brand. Customers expect you to know them and by doing so, prefer that you communicate with them with this knowledge in mind. When you have enough knowledge about your customers, segment your base and start to target your communications.

Over and above this, if you are not communicating effectively and regularly with your customers, you are not top of mind. In the myriad of email and mobile communications we receive on a daily basis; where does that leave your brand?

In short, when you have the tools available to create intelligent, customised communications that target the needs and interests of individual customers – use it. Many of your competitors already are...

Nicola Els
Head of eBilling
www.striata.com

It's all about the data!

The European Email Marketing Conference highlighted the same themes as every other email marketing conference over the last year: the importance of data, relevance, targeting and customer engagement. So I have to ask the question - if we all understand that these topics are important, why are so few companies making significant inroads in these project and process areas?

When I considered why companies aren't progressing to a greater extent in these areas, the answer was simple: data is at the core of every one of the issues highlighted and getting relevant data is easier said than done.

Without the correct data, embarking on a successful email marketing programme is impossible. You need the data in order to remain relevant, target your customer base and to trigger communications - not only when an action is taken, but also based on matching preferences against upcoming events.

What data do you have?
Getting the required data out of company legacy systems can be tough. Add to that the challenge of dealing with people who might not understand the requirement (ever tried explaining to the IT department why it's important that you have all the data?) Once you have the data you need to start slicing and dicing it - a task that could require the skills of a data and/or business analyst, which is a resource that most email marketing departments just don't have available to them. It doesn't end there - the task can get increasingly complex.

Do you have all the information?
Of course the above assumes you have all the data required. For the most part, databases have the bare bones when it comes to information, creating the need to launch campaigns, in order to augment the data on the database. It takes time to get the required information and of course there will be some customers on the database that just won't supply it.

Is the data current?
Another problem is that data ages. For example, preferences could have changed over time or - if your database makes use of age ranges as opposed to birth date - eventually you will no longer know the age of your base. Added to that, people move around and so contact details change. This creates another requirement to launch database updating campaigns.

So what is the solution?
Take it one step and one day at a time. Work with your email service provider to map out the actual data required for your triggered and targeted email campaigns and roll out projects to augment and update the data needed.

Implementing a successful email marketing programme that is relevant, targeted and triggered at customer touch-points takes time. Plan your strategy and focus on the data. Once you have the data, the rest will start falling into place.

Here are some tweet takeaways from the European Email marketing Conference from @tamaragielien: http://www.b2bemailmarketing.com/2010/11/main-takeaways-from-the-european-email-marketing-conference-2010.html

Mia Papanicolaou
www.striata.com

Email, at your service - as always

In the late 70's, Japanese electronics companies introduced the fax machine to the masses and businesses were poised to never buy another stamp again. Over thirty years later, with the number of pages sent per year exceeding 200 billion in the United States alone, I still see the mailman three days a week.

Email made the same promises not so long ago and even though the number of email users will increase to 1.9 billion in the next few years, the only dead medium at this stage is the telegram.

Email is too ingrained in our lives to become a "dead" medium

There has been a lot of talk in the blogosphere and at conferences aboutthe future of email, with big names in social media even laying down the gauntlet by declaring it a "dead" medium. Even though there has beenmassive growth in social media registrations, typically surpassing new email uptake, there is still a lot to be said for the faithful email.

Asa service originally intended for "techies", its simplicity has allowedit to evolve alongside newer technologies. From the personal email replacing the informal letter to the invaluable business tool used by every corporate employee, email has become a ubiquitous service in our daily lives. Just a few years ago, email was limited to the work desk and maybe a bulky desktop at home. With the advent of the mobile revolution email has become a vital part of our daily lives, right therein our pockets keeping us in touch (almost) 24 hours a day so it's easyto see how a technology loses its excitement when it becomes so ingrained in our lives.

Email is a necessity

Being ingrained in our everyday lives is, of course, a good thing. It ensures the longevity of the medium as it has long since been upgraded from a convenience to a necessity. Spam is now largely under control with better software, filters and practices giving emails a more "official" feel. This gives the sender not only a duty to uphold the validity of their communication but also an advantage that was non-existent previously. Many customers are now expecting the emails they receive to be worth their while and no other medium provides this freedom.

By allowing targeted information and marketing, transactional data and the ability to receive personalized feedback all to the same inbox, the email address still remains the most important known piece of customer data.

To get the most out of this valuable tool you need to consider all aspects of email including distribution, best practice, effective campaign concepts and appropriatecalls-to-action.

You may own this incredibly valuable piece of customer data but are your email communications maximized for best response?Alex Papadopulosstriata.com

If you’re already talking, why not make it more worthwhile?

To be honest, I never really saw the point of blogging. Writing random pieces to relate a topic back to my everyday life was a notion I didn't buy into at first. But our website stats and the feedback that we've received from our partners, customers and prospects in response to our regular blog posts has proven me wrong.

Pushing the blog has increased readership

The fact is that everyone in Striata and on our mailing list has a common interest – electronic document delivery – and this type of regular, informal communication helps to build a stronger relationship between us. Each week some new ideas or a different perspective on accepted views are put out there to hopefully get people thinking and maybe inspire changes to the way things are done. But mainly, it lets everyone know that we're passionate about what we do, that we have opinions and ideas and that we are keen to share our passion with our clients, partners and other contacts. Plus of course "pushing" our blogs out to you dramatically increases the readership. I mean, you're not going to visit striata.com every week just for fun to check and see if I've written something interesting/witty/useful, are you?

This all got me thinking about other companies' regular communications with their customers. We often hear that the bill is the only regular touch-point between a company and the customer. But, standing alone is it a good customer touch-point? Does it add value to the relationship? Generally, the best you can hope for is that the customer isn't upset at the amount due of their bill. No-one will ever look forward to receiving their bill.

What if your eBill could add value to the relationship?

So, why not use this regular communication to expand the relationship to something that isn't just money-focused? Why not include a blog or newsletter with each eBill? It may be obvious, but every company has something in common with their customers. It shouldn't take much to come up with something to tell your customers each month that will show you're interested in more than their money. Depending on the type of company, there are all sorts of things you can discuss. Product reviews eg. the iPhone vs. the latest Samsung smartphone. Tech/green updates like the latest scrubbers in your power-station chimneys or femto-cell roll-out to boost mobile coverage. Or perhaps even charitable work your company or employees are taking part in? Anything that shows your customers that you're more than just a faceless corporation only interested in the bottom line.

Of course, with paper-based billing, the cost of this sort of newsletter/blog sent with each bill would be prohibitive. But with eBilling, the cost of an additional page is negligible if anything at all. And of course you can also include a call-to-action such as a link to your website to pre-order the iPhone 5 or whatever else works for you. It's about giving your customer informative, unbiased and engaging information or offers. Just a thought, chew on it!

Keith Russell
Sales Director, Asia Pacific
www.striata.com

What the new era of "Smart" inboxes means for email delivery

As eMarketers and eBillers, we are constantly fighting the battle of getting every email to its destination through clever, practical design and delivery methodologies. We've had to overcome many barriers – strict spam filters, a myriad of different email software and web browsers and not to mention design and copy layout challenges to achieve maximum open rates. If that wasn't hard enough, we are now faced with another hurdle to overcome:

Inboxes that are automatically able to distinguish between important email and email that should safely be ignored. Introducing the "Smart" inbox.

"Smart" inbox - sounds so sophisticated but so what?

Inboxes are becoming more and more intelligent thanks to new features that allow users to automatically sort and manage incoming mail more effectively. The "Smart" inbox uses a range of variables and filters from sender recognition to user interaction to determine what email is deemed important and what email can be discarded or filed into an "unimportant" folder somewhere or even worse, deleted!

Take for example Google Mail, who just recently launched their Priority Inbox feature.

The Priority Inbox is segmented into the 3 clear categories of mail:

• Important and Unread – The heading says it all. This is where you want your marketing messages to be delivered automatically, and where you could expect far greater open and click through rates.


• Starred – This section is marked as important and requires follow up. You can reasonably expect that emails will be opened from this section as they have been marked by the user for follow up.


• Everything Else – This really means, "unimportant and I'll get to it whenever I can email". Not the kind of place you want your marketing communications to end up. Chances are it is less likely that these will be read.

Using a smart algorithm, Gmail Priority Inbox analyses information, such as the addresses that you mail the most and your email usage behaviours – what emails you click on and which ones you discard without reading.

Also, when the user marks messages important or unimportant, the algorithm adapts itself as it learns and understands what type of mail they deem as important and what is generally not. Plus future messages will be treated in the same way, without the user having to do anything.

What does this mean for you?

The "Smart" inbox has major implications for marketers and companies wanting to communicate with their bases. Gone are the days where we can assume that emails are generally going to appear in an inbox sorted by date received. Now more than ever we should be applying best practice to email design and delivery.

On the plus side, the rewards for delivering wanted, relevant messages are that your emails get priority positioning in an uncluttered inbox.

Conversely, the penalties for getting it wrong result in poor inbox positioning or worse, it may never reach the inbox at all.

What then should you do to ensure priority positioning?

Here are a number of things you should be doing:

• Segment and profile your base so you can tailor your communications to be more relevant to your customer. The more relevant the communications, the greater the chance of it being opened and/or marked as important


• Send effective welcome messages – there is no better time to tell your customers to add your sender address to their contacts list and describe what communications they can expect from you. Also, use it as an opportunity to educate them on the importance of marking messages as important or "starring" them for later reading


• Review the design and copy of your communications ensuring you have included strong subject lines and pre-headers. Also ensure you find a good balance between text and images so your email can be scanned quickly in the preview pane when images have not been downloaded yet.


• Drive meaningful interaction with your customers by ensuring you have strong, visible and readable calls to action. Include social media sharing capabilities and where possible include features such as call-me-back's and polls


• Introduce a lifecycle communication programme - Where you have a number of critical triggered transactional messages and important scheduled communications such as electronic statements, all sent from the same address. Due to their nature these messages will most likely be opened or marked as important by the user. So your marketing communications sent from the same address will be recognised as relevant and important too.

While "Smart" Inboxes are relatively new and may represent a small percentage of your database, the point is, the email landscape is changing. You should be changing your thinking too.

(P.S. – We used Gmail as an example to highlight "Smart" inbox concept – the other email service providers do have similar features built in as well, so this concept is not unique to Gmail. Where smaller service providers may not have this feature now you can reasonably expect that they will follow.)

Haydn James
Head of eMarketing
www.striata.com

Dispelling the myths around email security

In previous blogs I addressed the benefits of presenting electronic documents via self service portals / Internet banking websites vs. their inability to achieve paper suppression.

Whether you choose to deploy a 'Push' or a 'Pull solution; security and risk are key to determining a successful strategy. Today I want to address what makes a "push" eDocument delivery approach the better choice when weighing up the risk and security factors. But before I do that, let me dispel some myths about email security that I've recently heard mentioned.

Click here for a comparative on ‘Push’ vs. ‘Pull’ and how these solutions complement each other

Email security myths dispelled:

MYTH 1: Email can be stolen en-masse at an ISP: I've heard some winners in my 15 years in this industry but this takes first prize. Yes, email can be stolen at ISP's in the same way your money can be stolen at the bank by bank employees. I know a few ISP Executives who would take some affront at this accusation.

MYTH 2: Email can be stolen en-route: Email can be stolen en-route in the same way a USPS vehicle can be hijacked and your physical mail stolen. It’s possible but incredibly difficult, expensive and most importantly, a serious crime. Unlike a USPS truck however, for a fraudster to locate a specific email would be like finding a needle in a haystack the size of Montana. On top of which they then have to brute force attack the encryption (more time & money.) The result of which is then a PDF copy of one consumer’s bill or statement. The reality is that even if one knew how, it is simply commercially unfeasible to do so (far easier to simply hijack that truck or steal your mail from your postbox.)

MYTH 3: PDF attachments trigger spam filters: Simply not true. Spam triggers spam filters. And if you send spam with PDF’s then these will also be blocked.

'Push' eDocument delivery - the better choice

Striata has delivered billions of secure electronic documents for over 11 years, in 14 countries and for over 250 major Financial Services, Telecommunication, Utilities and Corporates, including 3 of the top 8 banks in the world.

From a security and risk perspective, 'Push' eDocument delivery is the better choice. As major players in this field, this is how we address it:

The Striata eDocument Delivery process has four security areas:

1. Email Address Verification – Explicit knowledge that your customer email addresses on file are accurate and current. For those who aren't; we have the Striata Email Address Verification program, which uses email and mobile phone text messaging to confirm and gather email addresses.
2. Striata eConsent – The process of gaining intelligent & compliant consent to go paperless, with just one click. Once the sender has an accurate and current email address, a highly personalized and Sender Authenticated eConsent email is sent to the consumer. There are two buttons in the email body, one to consent to go paperless and one to decline to do so – the recipient just clicks on one of them. There is no website to visit, no enrollment form, no choosing & remembering of usernames & passwords
3. Striata Sender Authentication – The recipient has intuitive knowledge that the sender is who they purport to be. Other than the various technology elements like SPF Records. DKIM etc, Striata utilizes a multi faceted approach to creating this intuitive trust. These include:

• Actual sender’s domain: The message comes from the sender’s address: for example. This should always be the actual address and not a spoofed one (if you had to do a reverse DNS lookup you would find the sender’s verifiable domain.)
• Subject line: We include the recipient's name in the Subject line
• Salutation: A full greeting is used: Dear Mr. John Smith
• Striata Authenticated: In the body of the email is a highlighted area which contains two to five partial pieces of information about the consumer. This may include physical address, account number, primary phone number etc.

4. Recipient Identification – The sender is assured that only the intended recipient has access to the secured Document content. There are two major ways (levels) that the sender is ensured that only the intended recipient can gain access to the secured information (bill, statements etc.)

• Access to the email inbox: Email accounts are very well protected by physical access to a device or in most cases through a username & password.
• Knowledge of a 'shared secret': In addition to the previous layer, Striata Secured PDF's are encrypted with a minimum of 128 bit RC4 encryption. The PDF is decrypted through recipient knowledge of a 'shared secret'. This is a partial piece of information known only to the sender and recipient. (Last 5 digits of a Social Security Number is a good example of this.)

It is very important that these two security layers are viewed hand in hand. The PDF is not in a publically accessible location and can only be decrypted by somebody who has BOTH access to the email account and who knows the 'shared secret'.

Peace of mind that the message is genuine

The combination of all of the above is what gives consumers explicit and intuitive trust (without any education) that the message is genuine.

In conclusion – when executed correctly, the processes and methodologies described above result in a security landscape that is significantly more secure than a two field password protected website. Most importantly however, is that these processes are many, many times more convenient for the end consumer, and, as we all know, convenience equals customer satisfaction.

Garin Toren
Chief Operating Officer, America
striata.com

The all important welcome email

We often say in sales and marketing that first impressions count. But no less important than first impressions are lasting impressions.

I am in the process of immigrating to the UK and have taken up services with a bank, as it is the most pressing need – I cannot get an apartment or anything else for that matter without a bank account. I have been less than impressed with the correspondence that has followed my engagement with the bank and unfortunately this is going to be the lasting impression I have of them.

Not a very memorable experience
I gave the bank my email address, but at no point was I welcomed as a new client, nor given the step-by-step guide on what to expect. To be fair I was given brochures regarding the account I opened, but they were promotional, so my immediate reaction was to throw them away as I knew what account I had opted for. Some simple, personalised emails would have made the experience a more memorable one for me and possibly created a customer for life. Here are some emails I would have been happy to receive:

• Welcome – we're so happy you've joined us. Here are the numbers you need to keep close by...
• Your card has just been dispatched
• You haven't logged into Internet Banking yet. How can we help you?

the beginning of my lifecycle with the bank. Understanding Lifecycle Messaging is key to creating masterful relationships with your clients as well as new opportunities for sales.

Simply put, a Lifecycle Messaging strategy is one that looks at key milestones in the relationship you have with your client and structures messaging to occur on those milestones. By ensuring your messaging has a clear purpose, you are able to drive your point home more effectively.
The alternative – which many companies still consider to be the norm – is to communicate only when it is convenient for you, which has no relevance to clients. No wonder clients tire of receiving most communication that comes their way.

And what are those milestones? The anniversary of the day they bought your product or signed up for your service, an upgrade notification, a birthday trigger for example. The most important thing to remember when using these triggers is to personalise and make your first communication special, rather than just sending the normal business-like email message.

The welcome message marks the start of the conversation (and there is nothing like an unexpected introduction to help move things swiftly along.)

As the start of the conversation, a welcome email is also far more likely to be opened. This gives you the perfect opportunity to get your email priority placement in the inbox, with the introduction of the smart inbox within the web email environment. Once the client has interacted with that email (opened / clicked / replied), future emails are likely to get priority placement, rather than being categorised as graymail or unimportant.

Amongst other things, the welcome message should:

• Give your clients information on what they've just signed up for and what they can expect
• Give them contact details and service details where applicable
• Serve as an instant confirmation that the email address exists and is
  valid. Should the email bounce, this is a perfect opportunity to gather
  an updated email address by sending a text, calling the
  member/subscriber or ensuring that a notification appears next time they
  log into your site

Also, since this is the first interaction with your client, you could use the opportunity to get more information from them, such as their desired frequency of communication and their likes and dislikes (depending on the communication you're sending out).

The welcome email isn't only about the start of the relationship, it also encompasses any new services the client has signed up for and should know more about. These include when and how to expect their bills, the process for insurance policies and what can be expected, etc.

These first impressions all form part of the customer's lifecycle with your company and are just as important as the live conversation you have with them. Isn't it time you thought more about making your first impression a lasting one?

I'd love to hear about a proper welcome you've received – or not!

* P.S. Google's new priority inbox is going to affect the way all your client communications are prioritised, so making sure your welcome email gets read is now going to affect the way all your client communications are prioritised...look out for a follow up blog to find out how you can get priority status for your emails.

Mia Papanicolaou
Innovative messaging specialist
striata.com

Transactional email: the glamorous marketing email's poor cousin

Let's face it . . . in the realm of Customer Lifecycle Communication; the Marketing Email is the glamorous cheerleader, while the Transactional Email is the nerdy science boff.

"What is a transactional email?" I hear you say.

A transactional email is generated automatically when someone interacts with an organisation. Based on what the interaction is, there's a follow up communication sent by email. There are plenty of examples: a confirmation, failure notification, a receipt, an invoice, a booking form.

Transactional emails are like the workhorses of customer communication. They often happen in the background, with little or no attention to their layout, design, and do not adhere to the corporate identity, nor reinforce the brand values. Someone developed the automated trigger message process, and that's the last time anyone paid attention to these emails - the result is
that they fail to provide real value to the business.

Transactional emails could do a much more productive job if treated as a valuable customer touch point. The same rules of email marketing should be applied to the nerdy cousin as to the glamorous prom queen.

Solution

Treat transactional emails as a vital part of a customer's brand experience. Make sure these communications adhere to your brand identity and digital communication guidelines.

Transactional emails include notifications that can be time critical, so keep the message size small and minimise the risk of the message being filtered by adhering to email marketing best practice.

Don't waste the opportunity to use this customer touch point for brand awareness, cross and up-selling and customer engagement (getting feedback).

Keep it simple but use the opportunity to reinforce your brand. And if you don't have the time or resources to do so, leave it to the experts!

Alison Treadaway MD,
Striata SA
striata.com

Who really pays the bills in this relationship?

Two things that have really been hot topics for me recently are "how many companies are truly listening to their customers?" and "how many look at the full lifecycle of customer communications?"

In terms of the first concept, I'm continually amazed by companies that make technology decisions based purely on "what other companies in the marketplace are doing", rather than asking their own customers what THEY want. After all, who pays the bills - your customers or your competitors?

Analyze this:

Total paperless billing adoption in the US averages less than 15%, yet more than 80% of the bill
paying population has access to email. Perhaps all those other companies aren't getting it right either.

At Striata, we spend a considerable amount of time and energy getting to know our clients and
their customers before any engagement. Very often we recommend conducting a customer survey on how they would prefer to receive bills, statements and other communications. Almost inevitably the team responsible for that client's eBilling / eDelivery strategy find the results surprising! .

Case in point: One of our largest telecom clients has offered online billing for quite some time. Customers have to click on a link in an email and log-in to view and pay each bill. However, in order to get over the adoption plateau that virtually every biller hits with this portal-based approach, Striata suggested augmenting their portal with PUSH eBilling. They liked the idea and decided to survey their customers. The Result: 50% more customers would prefer to receive their bill attached to an email, as opposed to an email with a link back to the portal. And, in another online survey, consumers were asked how they would like to receive their electronic bills. THREE times as many consumers said they would prefer to receive a secure email attachment of their bill as opposed to those prepared to log-in to the biller's portal.

What this should tell you is that email is your customer's preferred communication channel, which brings me to my next hot button, "customer lifecycle communication".

Think bigger picture

In my experience, most companies don't give nearly enough attention to how they can sync up all of their transactional, marketing and notification-type communications. The net result is that customers receive emails for some correspondence (like newsletters and marketing) and paper for everything else. Not a great customer experience.

Striata's core strength lies in our ability to not only deliver all communications electronically from a single system, but also to compile a profile on each customer and provide usable data back to each department (billing, marketing, customer service etc).

Gathering information on preferences for how customers want to receive correspondence, which products and services they are most interested in and which banners, buttons and other links they click on puts you in an infinitely stronger position. With this usable data you can sell more to
existing customers, reduce costs (such as paper and postage) and most importantly provide even better customer service (which leads to higher retention.)

What is the value of an email address?

Customers have been willing to provide their email address for years. But very few companies take this for what it's worth. Once you have permission to use their email address, it's critical that you leverage this extremely powerful and very cost effective medium for as many pieces of communication as you can, not just for bills.

If you aren't already using triggered communications or treating all customer interactions as part of a carefully mapped out customer lifecycle management (CLM) program, isn't it time you started?

Want to get more out of your billing relationship with clients? Talk to one of our eBilling specialists today

Barrie Arnold
Vice President of Sales - Striata North America
www.striata.com

Make it an eBilling evolution, not a revolt

My Google Alert keyword search turned up an interesting forum discussion from Malaysia last week. Someone was upset that a mobile operator there had introduced a US$0.88 charge for sending out a paper bill because eBilling is now available to their customers. Nothing unusual, but I noticed that as I read down the postings (or in most cases, rantings), the rhetoric became more heated and passionate. What started off as a fairly reasonable, minor complaint ended up with the company being lambasted for being unethical and greedy; for profiteering and introducing illegal charges! Based on this forum, the poor company appears to be second only to Al Qaeda in the Axis of Evil! And I'm sure their Public Relations department has since been in a spin, trying to contain the fall-out!

But the thing is that none of this was necessary. In the interests of fairness and accuracy, I did add my tuppence worth to this discussion; rather more reasonable and along the lines of:

The issue here is really relating to how the company has gone about this change to their billing practices. It may or may not be illegal for them to introduce a charge without telling the customer - I'll leave that for better informed people than me to decide - but they certainly need to manage the customer relationship better to take the sting out of any additional charges being levied.

What's required is a customer adoption strategy designed to get customers to sign up for (cheaper, greener) eBilling without upsetting them or indeed inciting them to raise class-action law suits, as has happened in the USA recently.


3 things I'd consider critical here:

1. Inform the customer in advance of any change to T&Cs that will result in additional charges
2. Always allow the customer to make a choice, either to opt-in, or to opt-out of eBilling
3. Make your eBill so good that most customers will actually want to receive their bill that way! Include interactivity to allow customers to analyse their usage, add relevant, targeted marketing , include a payment form for ease of payment and add graphs etc. All the things you can't do with paper bills.

Approached properly, the change to eBilling should work well for telcos (and banks and utilities), customers and the environment – a win-win-win solution.

Stories like this should be a thing of the past, but until companies realise that there's more to eBilling than just a webpage or an email; until they add value to their eBill offering; until they realise that customer psychology needs to be considered when pushing for paper turn-off, we can expect more revolts.

Is your eBilling strategy focused on the "customer experience"?

Keith Russell
Sales Director - Asia Pacific
striata.com

Dear Sir. Why have you stopped communicating with me?

For anyone living in South Africa, just the mention of the words "City of Johannesburg" or "Municipality" is enough to make you want to pull every last remaining hair out your head...

My year long tantrum started when I received a R120,000 (about $16,000) utility bill from my local municipality for water and electricity consumption, of which water constituted 95% of the bill. Now this would not have been that unusual or surprising if I happened to be "running a small bottling plant in my backyard and I was illegally distributing my own private label mineral water" as suggested by a rather unhelpful and rude customer service agent!

However, since I am not the type of character that would perpetrate such a crime, and the fact that I don't spend 4 hours a day in the shower trying to perfect my Pop Idol audition song, then this clearly had to be a billing error that could be resolved with a quick phone call or
email. No problem! Right?

Now before I continue my rant, I never had any preconceived idea that I would have a direct line into the Mayor's office, but I did have an expectation to be able to communicate with someone.... anyone. Boy was I in for a rude awakening!

So where did it all go wrong?

Well unbeknown to me at the time, I actually had a burst underground water pipe. So the first month of "unusual" consumption they simply stopped communicating with me! No statements for 6 months. No alerts to say that an abnormal consumption reading was taken. No payment reminders. No letters of demand.

I'm surprised that they never even attempted to communicate with me by cutting off my lights and water supply – I think I might have got the message then don't you think? No, rather let my account build up to R120,000 and then switch on my statements after 6 months so I can
experience the pleasure of a mild heart attack. Not cool!

So naturally the thing for me to do was to resolve this error as quickly as possible, and herein lay my second problem. Trying to communicate with the municipality!

• Using the Call Centre number advertised on the website – couldn't get through... ever!


• I sent numerous emails to a designated customer service address – no response in 9 months... and counting.


• No other communication channels were available to me like a web form or even a fax number


• My last resort, a visit to the Customer Service centre, not very convenient in the high tech digital age if you ask me.

the various channels that are provided to me as a consumer only to be met with the sounds of silence. I hate being ignored!

The good news however is that, I eventually managed to resolve the matter by making contact with the water supplier directly. Who after investigation detected the leak, and duly admitted fault on behalf of the Municipality. They subsequently wrote off the R120,000 charge for
actual consumption, which could have been avoided and rectified if they had only communicated with me from the beginning.

The following questions have to be asked: Why? Why stop communicating with me in the first place? Why was the process so difficult? Why was it up to me to navigate through a maze of
communication channels, departments and companies to have my query resolved?

The fact remains - I don't have a relationship with the water supplier, I have a relationship with the municipality – I consume their products and services, they invoice me, I pay them, therefore I want to be able to communicate directly with them via all possible channels, and
I also want to be communicated to, when the need arises. Simple as that!

The lesson of this experience is this:

Companies run the risk of suffering irreparable damage to their brand and/or significant financial losses if they do not invest in sound direct customer lifecycle communication strategies . They spend fortunes on their Brand Image or Brand Promise which is perpetuated in various forms of glitzy advertising media and platforms at considerable expense.

Yet, when it comes to Brand Action (how the brand actually delivers on its promise), they fail dismally, because they are unable to facilitate and engage directly with their customers when their customers want or expect to have a direct conversation with them. It is a huge #BrandFail if you ask me.

Therefore, the importance of implementing customer communication strategies (including response mechanisms) cannot be overemphasised enough. There are so few companies out there that are doing it, if at all. And with so many good multi-channel eMessaging technology platforms
available to help manage the communication lifecycle, there are simply no excuses for companies, or municipalities for that matter, to not be communicating with you during your tenure as a customer.

Note: Look out for more in-depth analysis on Customer Lifecycle Management in our upcoming posts

Haydn James
Head of eMarketing
www.striata.com

Demand Generation from Transpromo Marketing, e-Invoicing and Electronic Payment

I recently received an email from someone with the title "Demand Generation Specialist". This got me thinking – mostly about who dreams up these titles?

It dawned on me that maybe the term "Salesman" wasn't cool anymore – but I soon realised that Demand Generation is a neat new buzz word in the lexicon of sales and marketing teams. Same work – different words.

The idea is to use all sorts of media to tell people about your products and services and get them to phone you!

Wow! Novel! Gotta try that – or wait? Isn't this what marketing has been trying to do for years?

It seems as if everything is getting a coat of the coolness paint at the moment. Take the hype about Cloud computing. Cloud this and Cloud that. Not long ago we called these things SaaS (Software as a Service) which is how Striata provides a heap of our services. And before that it was ASP (Application Service Provider) and before that just 'Outsourced'.

Sidebar: The Striata Application is "Cloud Ready" – actually one better than that as we have an instance running in the "Cloud" at a Unisys data centre.

But back to demand generation...

The single most important touch point with an existing customer is their monthly bill. It has the ability to generate or prevent thousands of service calls to your call centre. But it also has the ability to generate thousands of clicks to your website.

As a demand generation tool – the old statement stuffer (now with a new coat of coolness and called "transpromo marketing", when associated with eBilling) can act as the primary cross-sell and up-sell tool for both B2C and B2B businesses.

Electronic payment confirmations or notices are also prime real estate for personalised messages. Of course you have to get this real estate in front of your customers – no use if your green programme isn't actually driving customers to your billing site and as a result they never see another bill. A case study from an Austrian company showed 85% paper turn off but only 30% of clients were accessing their eBills each month!

The current e-invoicing automation programmes are killing off demand generation from transpromo marketing. No-one sees the actual bill anymore and hence the opportunity to market new products and services is lost. Billers are asking how they can replace this vital touch point.

Whilst we are all striving to reduce paper and increase efficiencies – we would do well to remember that all business starts with a customer wanting to buy our products and services.

Maybe "demand generation" isn't such a bad term afterall...

Michael Wright
CEO - Striata
www.striata.com

Letter to the Editor

Dear Head of Online Customer Service at AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and Verizon Wireless

I recently gave some thought to your internet customer self service strategy and felt compelled to write to you.

Your website is great for only two reasons:

The first is, I can make purchases online and the second is that I can find customer service contact numbers. Sadly, for me the benefits end there.

Online purchases work for me because the alternative is either talking to customer service representatives or having to go to the store, neither of which I find to be a particularly pleasant experience. So good on all of you for enabling me to make purchases without having to meet a single staff member!

But here's what I'm never going to do at your site:

I'm not going to view my bill on your website. Why should I go to all that trouble when I can simply wait for my envelope? By the way - I can never remember my password and I really enjoy costing you $5 each time I call! (I get a kick out of that. So far in my relationship with my landline provider I am $355 up.)

If I can remember my username & password, it takes me more than 60 seconds to find my bill on the website. Sprint, I counted 27 clicks (4 minutes) Good job!

You know how long it takes me to open my envelope? 2 seconds. You do the math.

I'm not going to look at my usage. See point above - I see my usage perfectly fine on paper.

I'm not going to try and troubleshoot my problem. You know that's impossible with all the variations of devices etc. I still can't fathom why any biller would consider trying to put that online. What I will do though is find the 'contact us' page and then I'm going to call you. ($5 – "ka-ching")

I'm not going to pay my bill there. Why would I go to 12 different websites when my bank does an excellent job of allowing me to pay all of them through one location? I know the banks were a little slow to this game in the US but it's all done now. I anticipate that all consumer eBill payments will eventually be initiated through internet banking.

So… How about:

• Instead of me having to take time to visit your complicated website to view my usage, you can simply email it to me once a week?


• Instead of visiting your website to view my bill, you simply email it to me?


• Instead of notifying me that there is new information on your website for me, you simply email me that information.
  

You should know that your customers are not stupid. We will visit your website when there is something there that we want to do, like buying a new service / accessory. You do not need to con us into going there through the pretence of customer service.

I have a novel idea, why don't you email my bill to me. That way, I'll have to do nothing to get it. And I'll like you more because instead of making my life infinitely more complicated, you are actually being useful and enhancing my experience.

PS – see here in case you need a reason to stop sending me a paper bill: http://bit.ly/9vYX0l

Yours in despair

Irritated in NYC

When customers just won’t adopt

During the course of my business travels, I have been lucky enough to meet many different people from different cultures and a variety of Telco's, utilities, financial institutions and government departments around Asia. Some already have an eBilling platform in place (often a web-portal) and some are still investigating the option of developing/implementing one. But they all seem to have one thing in common - when I ask them about paper turn-off rates, either current or projected, they all look rather sheepish and start mumbling about "early days still" and "consumer adoption difficulties…"

The goal is to save money!

Let's get this clear from the start – The goal of any eBilling project is to save money! It may be sold as environmentally friendly and in some cases as a convenience tool, but organisations do this to save money. Total eBilling costs are typically 50%-80% lower than traditional mail. In the current, difficult economic climate, you'd assume that a detailed ROI analysis is done before any eBilling project kicks off - cost of project divided by savings on paper/postage.

Yet for in-house developed web-portals, I regularly see paper turn-off targets set at 3% for the first year, and even 5% over 3 years! In other words, a full-blown web-portal with detailed security and firewalls is being developed and implemented, yet 95% of the customer-base won't use it within the first 3 years. Well, there's nothing like setting your sights low…! And just how does that ROI analysis stack up? Lots of development costs today, in return for 3-5% paper-turn off over 3 years. It just doesn't add up.

When I mention that we have clients around the world, both in developed and developing countries, that have achieved 17% paper turn-off in 18 months and 60%+ paper turn-off over 5 years, that sheepish look returns with comments like "But it's different here in our country." Well, the fact is that it isn't different.

Beyond the technology, there needs to be a coherent adoption strategy

These results haven't been achieved due to some psychological propensity to eBilling inherent in certain nations or customer-bases, Striata has achieved these results, because it has 10 years of eBilling experience and has learnt from all the mistakes that in-house project teams are about to make. We understand that beyond the technology of eBilling, there needs to be a coherent adoption strategy across the organisation, supported by analytic tools that identify who is and isn't receiving and reading eBills. Cloud technology means that all this is available with minimal up-front investment and implementation timescales of weeks, not months.

It's about starting with the right ROI in mind

eBilling is a specialist area spanning technology, methodology and consumer psychology. And like any other specialist area, if you don't have the full skill-set in-house, it pays to call in the specialists. I mean, I'm sure you could fix your own car's broken gearbox if you spent enough time studying up on it, but isn't it quicker and ultimately cheaper to send it to a garage?

So the next time you're reviewing your eBilling capabilities go over your ROI calculations again. And ask yourself just what is your target paper turn-off rate for this year? If it isn't into double digits, give me a call…

Keith Russell
Sales Director - Asia Pacific
www.striata.com

eBills on the move

I'm trying to get my head around whether customers want to view eBills on their mobiles.

"Of course, why not?" is the obvious answer, but when you consider the question from different angles, the perspective becomes murky.

Coming, ready or not

In some developing countries, there is 10 times the number of mobile accounts than Internet accounts. If you read no further, this information alone confirms that an essential process like billing needs to cater for the growing market segment reachable only by mobile.

We can't assume all mobile users are Internet-enabled, but my Google research tells me that by 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common web access device worldwide (Gartner).

Are you PC, mobile or both?

I'm excluding business to business invoicing from this deliberation, as I'm fairly confident that the creditor's clerk is working on a PC, not checking invoices on the fly between grocery shopping and gym class.

With the spotlight firmly on consumers, where does the personal bill recipient want to view their bill?

In the absence of thorough and expensive research (if I was operating on that level, this would be a thesis, not a blog), I offer my perspective, with an open invitation to offer yours.

1. Consumers want choice.

• Yesterday, they viewed their bill on their work PC and paid via Internet Banking.


• Today they checked the Payment Due information via their Blackberry and paid through mobile banking.


• Tomorrow they may switch to an iPhone, and expect to view eBills there too.

2. What customers don't want is hassle.

Customers avoid unnecessary effort at all costs. The general public is not interested in the development dilemma inherent in diverse mobile operating systems. The fact that a bill might be viewable on PC email, but not on mobile email is incomprehensible to the average Joe. It is just expected that as the market adds a channel, so the service provider must seamlessly integrate that channel into all communication processes.

What we need is an eBilling offering that works on PC email and across mobile operating systems. Is there such a thing?

The answer is yes, and it's murky with opportunity!

Alison Treadaway
www.striata.com

iPhones for Everyone, eBilling for the Masses

No sooner have I blogged about Apple being a model of innovation and so focused on the consumer, than their latest (and greatest?) product, the iPhone 4 is hit by "Antenna-gate". I personally believe that this minor blip on the radar will have little effect on consumers' desire to own an iPhone. In my mind, the biggest limitation on iPhone sales is their decision to restrict the number of wireless providers that offer it. In the US, AT&T has the only license.

Why all the barriers?

Owning an iPhone sounds great, but switching mobile phone carriers requires a fair amount of effort and is often met with considerable resistance.

• There is a perception that switching means a whole lot of work – everything is going to change.


• There is risk – what if I don't love the service? Can I switch back?


• You may have had a bad experience with AT&T in the past.


• "I just worked out how to understand my current bill and now everything is going to change".

What does any of this have to do with eBilling?

Getting rid of paper bills sounds great, but switching to eBilling has traditionally required a fair amount of effort from the consumer and as a result, has been met with resistance.

• In most instances, the old online billing model requires a whole lot of work. You have to proactively log-on to the biller's website, find out where and how to sign-up, choose and remember a username and password, as well as provide a whole lot of other information in order to make the switch to paperless billing.


• There is a degree of risk. It's often not clear how you can switch back if you hate their eBilling service.


• You may have had a bad experience with eBilling in the past – forgotten your username / password, or used an online billing portal with so many steps that it was more hassle than what it was worth.


• Very often, the online bill looks nothing like the paper version and it's difficult to print or download a copy for your records.

eBilling is probably nowhere near as sexy as using an iPhone, but there is certainly appeal as more and more "technology savvy" consumers adopt the solution each day.

Meet your consumers WHERE THEY ARE.

If all wireless carriers offered the iPhone, there is no doubt in my mind that the stocks of all other phone manufacturers would plummet. More importantly, by making it more accessible, the number of iPhone users would go through the roof.

In eBilling terms, the key to maximizing adoption is to meet consumers in their comfort zone - their email inbox.

Why force consumers to come to your portal – and then make them go through a complex sign-up process, just so that they can replace their paper bill with an electronic copy?

Receiving an encrypted PDF bill in your inbox that looks exactly like the paper version and that also has a secure PAY NOW button in it, is so much easier than receiving a paper copy and then heading to internet banking to pay or writing out a cheque. But the most critical factor is not to force consumers to switch everything they do in order to adopt this (not so new) technology.

Striata's proven no-registration methodology means eBilling is accessible to everyone with an email address, not just the technology savvy consumers that are prepared to jump through all the hoops to make the switch.

Are you ready to make the switch?

Barrie Arnold
VP of Sales, America
www.striata.com

What Paperless Adoption Rates Can I Realistically Expect?

The case for eBilling (also known as paperless billing) has been
described as 'compelling.' Then again, take-up rates have been described
as disappointing. Despite the many arguments for eBilling, the real
problem with mass adoption is customer reluctance to change, despite the
idea that eBilling saves the environment and saves money.

The definition of eBilling Adoption Rates is the number of customers that
request an electronic bill instead of a paper bill. If you have 100,000
customers and 20,000 of your customers request an electronic bill
instead of a paper bill that means you have achieved a 20% adoption
rate. The higher your adoption rate, the better the cost savings
achieved, since total eBilling costs are typically 50%-80% lower than
traditional mail.

There are six clear reasons why consumers do not turn off their paper bill:

1. Customer indifference: Doing nothing is the path of least resistance.


2. Enrolment: Registering at each website is a painful process.


3. Multiple biller sites: Too much effort to remember each process.


4. Convenience: Fetching my bill is less convenient than receiving it.


5. Presentment vs. payment: I can see what I owe, now how do I pay?


6. Mobile matters: I need to see more than just a summary.

From these reasons, it is clear that consumers are searching for convenience in their already hectic lifestyles, and so, the easier we can make their eBilling transition, the higher the adoption rates we'll achieve.

What methods do you use to achieve high adoption rates?

The most important consideration is not what technology is implemented, but how the consumer is treated during the conversion journey. Here are some considerations:

• Rollout Strategy: Develop detailed rollout strategies to ensure the desired adoption rate is achieved. This includes deciding on an opt-in or opt-out approach, whether to offer incentives or impose penalties and how to handle exceptions.


• Understand Your Customer Base: Carefully review the demographics of your customer base: What percentage are over 50 years old? What percentage of your customers use online banking and how does this compare to industry averages? What percentage of your customers live in rural areas? Understanding your base is critical to developing effective rollout campaigns.


• Consumer Education: It's important to agree internally WHY electronic billing is to be implemented. An environmental argument only has legs if it doesn't only address saving the rainforests, since paper generally comes from sustainable forests. Instead, address the fact that the paper industry is a major source of toxic chemical pollution, especially toxic solvents and chlorine compounds used to bleach and delignify pulp (The process of removing lignin – an organic substance binding the cells – from wood or non-wood fibres).


• Utilize all Existing Print Correspondence: The most effective way to spread the paperless message is to embed graphical marketing within your printed statements and on envelopes. This is very cost effective and has great results.


• In-Person Interactions: An employee/customer rewards program for signing up for electronic statements is a great way to get results. A few banners, posters, and employee buttons are all it takes to make this a great success.

In Conclusion:

There really is no simple answer to the question of what adoption rate can be expected when embarking on an eBilling campaign. In Striata's global experience across financial services, telco's and utilities, the average adoption rate for an online eBilling solution seems to plateau at between 7% and 12% over a 3-year period. However many of our clients are achieving adoption rates double, triple and even quadruple these figures in certain instances. The higher adoption rates are directly related to the ease of use for the consumer.

For more detail on how we simplify your customers' lives, please see The eBilling 'Push' Advantage .

Michael Haupt
Managing Director, Europe
www.striata.com

Email marketing is a specialisation

It amazes me that I still receive email marketing from large organizations with basic errors. How is it that they ignore well-documented research and experience about how consumers read and interact with an email?

In the past week I have received emails that may as well be posters, because they are one big image, emails with the logo at the bottom of the template, calls to action hidden within text and at the bottom of the email and subject lines that give no indication of content.

So I ask the question... are these organisations embarking on self-service email marketing without the crucial knowledge around what works? Or is this a case of believing that above the line marketing is unchangeable when it comes to online? Either way, this is a massive error on the part of these organisations.

Debunking some myths

• MYTH: We have the software, so it’s just a matter of sending an email to our database
  
  FACT: Anyone can send out an email, however, there are basic principles that need to be adhered to: from testing the HTML in various email environments to see how it renders, monitoring deliverability, creative layout for best results to consistent reporting to improve results. If you don’t have the experts on hand to help out, you could be failing at one or more of these points.


• MYTH: Our logo must always appear at the bottom of any communication as that is part of our CI
  
  FACT: Simply put, if you look at your web-site you’ll notice that the logo is placed at the top. Email is no different. People read from the top to the bottom when it comes to online pages and as such, your branding should always appear at the top.


• MYTH: We need to keep the same creative we have used in our print direct marketing campaigns
  
  FACT: Keeping the creative identical to your direct mail pack is a mistake. Consumers react differently to email therefore the way an email is designed and laid-out is crucial to meeting the goals of the campaign. Rather aim to keep creative elements and adapt them to email best practice.

Why does this matter?
The biggest reason this matters is that our communications are a critical tool in building a community with our subscribers. And unlike smaller communities which are inherently more personal; large organizations cannot simply rely on the good will of their subscriber base.

Email marketing as a discipline has been around for the better part of 10 years and its evolution is largely due to testing, reporting and customer interaction. The discipline is still evolving as consumer behaviour, and how they engage, keeps adapting to the online world. You need to keep abreast of these trends and monitor reports to constantly improve your communication.

If your communications become a burden, a hassle or a complication to consumers, they will switch you off, by unsubscribing, marking your email as junk, complaining or simply ignoring all future emails. And the quickest way to make your emails such a burden to your customers is to ignore basic, well-documented best practices, learned through years of hard knocks.

Ultimately, handling your own email marketing without the assistance of real experts – whether they be hired into your own organization or hired as outside service providers – is detrimental to your communication strategy as a whole.

If you’ve recently ‘switched off’ a supplier’s email I’d love to hear your reasons...

Mia Papanicolaou
Head of eMarketing
www.striata.com

Why I love and hate HSBC

When I moved to the UK I needed to open a bank account. So began a rigmarole that circled back into a catch 22 situation; you can't rent a property without a bank account and you can't open an account without a local address.

Bank after bank transferred my call to different departments; none of which could assist me in opening an account until I had formally arrived in the UK and lived at one address for more than a month.

HSBC rescued me with a limited function account that I could open with just a passport. I still needed to go to a branch to complete the paperwork, but I could evade the circular reference of not yet having a fixed address.

Falling in love with HSBC

But this is where I started to fall in love with my bank – the branch manager needed authorisation on the process and came down to meet me – I explained that I was moving to the UK and from that point on she took away all the bureaucracy and red tape. I communicated by email, scanned documents and as soon as I had a permanent address, my accounts were automatically converted to standard accounts without the limitations.

People often say that when dealing with their banks, they have just become a number. They call distant call centres and don't have access to a traditional bank manager. I guess this is true in many instances – banks have to be efficient and maintaining high touch, personal relationships is expensive.

I guess it depends on your branch, the manager and your circumstances, however I love HSBC.

The balance of love-hate

But I'm incredibly frustrated at the amount of paper that my bank produces. I hate that they say, "Go Green", but then send me paper for every transaction. I admit that I am not a 'run of the mill' client – but every foreign transfer into my account results in a letter confirming the funds. Every change of terms and conditions results in a small forest being sent through the mail.

I realise that the Royal Mail needs the work – but there are far more convenient ways to do this – secure electronic document delivery is no longer a black art.

Hands up everyone that would rather receive most of their post in an email ? Countless studies have shown that consumers, SMEs and businesses prefer email to paper.

Come on HSBC – put my email address as my primary contact point and just email it.


Michael Wright
Global CEO
www.striata.com

The World Cup of eBilling

With all eyes on South Africa as the Football World Cup moves into top gear, the buzz in our Johannesburg office is spreading to our global offices, even as far as here in Hong Kong! And it’s got me thinking - what it would take to win the eBilling World Cup if there was such a thing? Who would you need in your team and what game plan/strategies will work best?

The defence is in the delivery
Well, you won’t even reach the second round if you don’t have a strong defence. For eBilling, we’re defending against the customer’s resistance to accept change. So, the fundamental requirement is to deliver the invoice or statement information to the customers in a clear, concise manner quickly and conveniently. But be warned - making the customer remember new id/password combinations and search a portal for this month’s bill is a definite own-goal!

Fancy footwork, like one-click payment, adds sparkle!
Once we’ve got a good, strong defence in place, we can move on to the mid-field. This is where a bit of fancy footwork and showboating is allowed, adding a bit of sparkle to the game and giving the punter more than they were expecting. Personalized eMarketing shows the customer that you really know what their needs are. Link-tracking feeds back into this - like a half-time locker room pep talk - ensuring the team learns from experience and plays better, game after game. One-click payment from within a PDF eBill will have the fans cheering! Update forms keep track of any team-changes. And if you’re looking for really flashy footwork, then why not use ‘Flash’ to slice and dice data and create dynamic user-defined graphs, giving the fans exactly what they want!

Paper turn off scores the winning goal...
To win the game, you need strikers to get you goals! And the goal for any eBilling solution is paper-turn-off , which provides both environmental and financial benefits . Registration-free sign-up and creative adoption strategies are key here. Look to the professional strikers; 97% of customers who start receiving Striata’s eBills end up turning off paper – each one like a ball in the back of the net! Now there’s a strike rate that even Cristiano Ronaldo would be proud of!

So, while Striata’s office football team may never trouble Brazil or Spain on the pitch, it may just be that we have the Ultimate Team for the inaugural eBilling World Cup.

What is your paper turn off ‘strike rate’?

Keith Russell
Sales Director, Asia Pacific
www.striata.com

Do you expect eBilling to be inconvenient?

This is a tidied up transcript from actual customer call to Striata Support in the USA in May of 2010:

Striata Support: "Thank you for calling Striata Support, this is Glenn, to whom am I speaking?"
Customer: "This is Diane Hughes"

Striata Support: "Good morning Ms.Hughes, how may I assist you today?"
Diane Hughes: "I received an email from my local utility asking me to sign up to get my utility bill electronically. I cannot however see where to do so?"

Striata Support: "Ms. Hughes, can you see the button in the body of the email that says "One-Click Signup""
Diane Hughes: "Yes, I can see that."

Striata Support: "Did you click it yet?"
Diane Hughes: "Yes I did. I got a pop up telling me that I was now enrolled in eBilling and that I would get my next bill electronically. But I didn't choose any username & password yet?"

Striata Support: "Yes that is correct. There is no username & password to choose. There is also no website to visit. Your next bill will arrive as a secure attachment to a personalized email from your local utility. You will be able to open it by simply entering the last four digits of your social security number. Once you have done that, you will be looking at a digital replica of your paper bill. Simple as that. You can also open it on an email enabled mobile device."
Diane Hughes: "So I don't have to go to any website, it just arrives?"

Striata Support: "That is correct ma'am."
Diane Hughes: "Ok, so how do I pay it?"

Striata Support: "Ms.Hughes, can you see an attachment to the email you are looking at?"
Diane Hughes: "Yes I can, it's a PDF?"

Striata Support: "Great, please open that and look at the first page."
Diane Hughes: "Ok, I have it."

Striata Support: "Can you see the payment form?"
Diane Hughes: "Yes I can."

Striata Support: "Great, so when your first bill arrives, you will simply enter your checking account and routing number into those fields. You only have to do this once. From then on it will be pre-filled out for you but hashed out for security purposes. So from month 2 it's as easy as opening the PDF with one click, checking that you are comfortable that the amount due is correct, and then you can pay with just one more click."

Diane Hughes: "So I pay from within the PDF? Is there no website I have to go and login to?"
Striata Support: "No ma'am, it's as simple as just two clicks, no website to visit at all. Your full bill detail is also included in the PDF along with any other information that used to be in the paper envelope."

Diane Hughes: "Ok, that really is easy, thank you, I understand. Are you sure I don't have to register somewhere?"
Striata Support: "Yes Ms.Hughes, we have purposefully removed any need to register, choose and remember usernames & passwords, or link back to any website, to make it easy for you."

Diane Hughes: "I see that, that is really easy."
Striata Support: "Have I answered all your questions today?"

Diane Hughes: "Yes, thank you, that is clear to me now. I didn't think it could be so easy but I see that it is."
Striata Support: "Thank you for calling Striata Ms.Hughes, we hope you have a wonderful day."

Diane Hughes: "Thank you, you too Glenn."

Garin Toren
Chief Operating Officer, America
www.striata.com

Striata Supports World Environment Day

This Saturday, June 5th is World Environment Day . Established by the UN General Assembly in 1972, this annual celebration promotes awareness of environmental issues through rallies, clean-ups, festivals, concerts and community events.

The theme for 2010 is 'Many Species. One Planet. One Future.' with a special focus on biodiversity and promoting the green economy.

Why is this in a blog about eBilling, I hear you ask?
Well, if like me, you aren’t attending a rally or a festival on June 5th and haven’t planned to support a community event, then maybe your conscience is looking for a small gesture that can add your voice to the green anthem.

Here’s my suggestion:

• Go to your postbox


• Count the paper bills you receive each month


• Promise yourself that you’ll convert at least 50% of your paper bills to email delivery

It’s that easy.

If everyone who reads this blog (l’ll smugly say about 100,000 readers) converts 5 paper bills to email, we could save a million sheets of paper every month. That’s 12 million sheets per year.

That’s a lot of paper saved, a lot of trees spared, and a whole heap of energy savings.

World Environment Day is about empowering people to become active agents of sustainable development, and promoting the understanding that communities are pivotal agents of change.

So don’t keep the idea to yourself.
Let’s join up and become the eBilling Community. Let’s be the people that refuse to accept paper bills, and who write persuasive letters to CEO’s of companies that don’t have an electronic billing alternative.

On Saturday, when Prime Ministers and Ministers of Environmental Affairs deliver statements and commit themselves to caring for the Earth, let’s make one simple pledge: No more paper!

It’s much easier than planting a tree and it shouldn’t cost you more than an email or call to your service provider.

Try it. Go paperless! You’ll feel good about your contribution.

Alison Treadaway
Managing Director, Africa
www.striata.com

Apple overtakes Microsoft. Is the same happening in the world of eBilling?

Last week, Apple overtook Microsoft as the world's most valuable technology company. Wall Street has called it "the end of an era and the beginning of the next one."

"Microsoft depends more on maintaining the status quo, while Apple is in a constant battle to one-up itself and create something new", said Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook.

While Microsoft has struggled to develop desirable updates to its primary products and to create significant new businesses in areas like music players, phones, game consoles and Web search. Apple's rapid expansion and market value is the result of being agile and innovative.

Apple anticipates what consumers want
Apple’s renaissance began with the launch of the iPod music player, and with it came visionary Chief Executive, Steve Jobs’ reputation for anticipating what consumers want. Since then, Mr Jobs and Apple have focused on providing consumers with the best possible experience – in the best computer, the best portable music device, the best smartphone and most recently the best tablet in the iPad.

As audacious as it is to compare Striata to Apple, there are a number of fascinating similarities.

• Striata has a dedicated commitment to designing technology and strategies around consumer preferences (as opposed to software based on billing and document management systems)


• Continuous innovation to produce cutting edge eBilling / eDelivery solutions and adoption methodologies, while everyone else continues down the path of the status quo - fighting low adoption rates with the traditional portal-based presentment model.


• Investing heavily in R&D, not for the present, but for how consumers will want to interact with companies in the future.

What do the consumers of tomorrow want from eBilling?
Since the company’s inception in 1999, everyone at Striata has been asking: Where will consumers want to view and pay bills in 3 years time? Where and on what kind of devices will they be viewing policies, contracts, annual reports, investment information and marketing?

The old guard and traditional market leaders in eBilling like CheckFree (now part of Fiserv) as well as the large print companies such as Kubra and DST Output, are all scrambling to develop their own versions of Striata’s award-winning PUSH eBilling technology. This is a testament to our continuous innovation and customer adoption rates, which are as high as 67% for consumer billing and 98% for commercial billing!

So the question you need to ask is: Do you want to work with a company that is developing technology to meet current market demands, or the company that has led virtually every innovation in this space for the past decade?

Should we expect Wall Street to call it "the end of an eBilling era and the beginning of the next one?" It’s quite possible.

Keen to be a part of the new eBilling era? Tell us what the future of eBilling looks like for you…

Barrie Arnold
Vice President of Sales, America
www.striata.com

Is your email marketing relevant enough to make you stand out?

Consumers and businesses are so suffocated by competitive messaging that the only real winner is utter confusion. A recent report in Fortune Magazine suggested that individuals are subjected to 30 000 brand messages per day, making it nearly impossible for any brand to stand out.

It stands to reason you’ll overlook, ignore or discard generic messages about products or services you aren’t ever likely to use. This is most certainly the case when it comes to email marketing , which is not only competing for a customer’s attention against other brands, but also trying to stand out through the clutter and spam.

Is your message getting lost in the noise?

Consider this: an estimated 88% of emails sent in 2009 were spam messages. So, your email marketing campaigns need to speak to the consumer on a personal level. Now is the time to change. Everyone is receptive to information about things that specifically interest them and in fact, rather than merely tolerating that sort of information, it is the sort of thing they actively seek out.

It’s about being relevant, to get your email marketing messages not only delivered, but read and actioned by your customers, you just have to start being relevant to them again.

Consumers are asking: do you understand me? Do you know what I want? Do you care to get it to me in the way that I want it? If you can answer yes to these sorts of questions, you have a real chance at gaining that consumer’s attention.

If you do not, you’ll struggle to gain readership for your messages and may see your unsubscribe rates begin to climb.

What you need to bear in mind:

• Listen to your customers: ask them what information they want to receive by posing questions that determine their life-stage and interests, right at the start when they sign up for email marketing. They’ll tell you what they’re interested in or want to buy if you care to listen to them.


• Segmentation and targeting: start segmenting your customer base, not only on their interests, but also on their purchase behaviour, demographics, life-stage, activity on previous emails and activity on your site. Then you can start targeting messages that are relevant to each customer, based on all the information you have in their profile.


• Content: make sure what you’re sending to them matches their interest. This is about what they want, not what you want to send them. Get this right and you’ll grow a willing and interested reader base.


• Timing: think about the optimal time to send your messages. This will depend on your audience and their daily and weekly habits.


• Using the right channels: what’s best, email? SMS? Something else? Know your audience and how they work and you’ll significantly increase your chances of reaching them.

To sum up

The right content, at the right time, using the right channels and all based on customer feedback will enable you to be relevant to the target audience for your products or services. In the end, that’s the ideal position for a marketer to be in.

Mia Papanicolaou
Head of eMarketing
www.striata.com

eBilling vs eInvoicing – Billions vs Billions

Confusion reigns in the land of eBilling and eInvoicing. Which model will save more? Both claim to be able to save billions but most people are unclear on the differences and the drivers behind the current explosion of activity in this area.

Firstly, a couple myths to debunk:

• eInvoicing is not just another Scandinavian government plot to control all commercial activity


• eBilling is not receiving a paper bill and paying it through internet banking


• You can’t actually save a whole Amazon rain forest by switching to eBilling


• eInvoicing is not just an XML replacement of EDI


• Banks don’t want to be your online bill filing cupboard


• There can’t be one consolidator for all consumer bills

Now a few truths to confirm:

• eInvoicing and eBilling can save billions of wasted costs on printing and postage


• eBilling does save the biller more than it saves the consumer (but who’s counting?)


• Consumers do prefer to have their bills emailed to them rather than fetching them from a website


• Cross border eInvoicing is complex and needs careful planning


• You can reduce your DSO (Days Sales Outstanding) by up to 30% through eBilling


• ExPP is good for the environment

With the plethora of noise out in the market about eBilling and eInvoicing, what we need to explain is the difference between the two concepts and when to talk about each one.

At the broadest level:
eInvoicing is the exchange of invoices between businesses (B2B) that regularly do business with each other, automating the Accounts Payable processes of receiving and processing incoming supplier invoices.

eBilling is the delivery of electronic bills to end consumers (B2C) and providing a payment option for them.

eInvoicing is generally highly automated with integrated workflow that needs agreement on standards and specifications, eBilling is the replacement of paper with electronic documents delivered via email (the simplest and easiest model) or via a website (Biller direct, bank aggregator or consolidator models).

Conclusion
So when talking about sending bills to end consumers; talk about eBilling – when talking about creating the Skynet of accounting systems; talk about eInvoicing.

Michael Wright
CEO
www.striata.com