Wednesday, January 27, 2010

I DO NOT want another mailbox

It seems like every time I get another / new financial services provider, I get another mailbox.

Let’s be clear, consumers do not want additional mailboxes. It is complicated enough, keeping multiple email accounts in sync between work, home and mobile devices, especially as most of us have at least two accounts. (Some of us three or even six…..)

On top of these, we now have banks, credit card providers, eBill consolidators and telecommunications providers, all insisting that the only way they will communicate with us electronically is within their portal. I don’t know about you, but after receiving a cryptic message that some unidentifiable communication type is waiting for me, I have to navigate to a portal, remember a username & password and then find the well hidden message center to read the actual message. (5 clicks??)

Then to make matters worse, it is usually some inane, useless message that I wouldn’t have read in the first place. After my bank cried wolf the first 15 times, I simply started ignoring these messages completely and also turned the paper back on. It takes me 2 seconds to throw out useless bank paper mail.

After email, the only way to get my attention is to call me or send me a paper letter. If banks cannot reach a point where they can deliver email communication and eDocuments in a secure way that does not require me to jump through hoops to get them, then paper it is going to have to be.

This is the primary reason why paper suppression initiatives are failing here in the United States. Consumers wish to be communicated with in a manner that is convenient to them and until it is in the inbox, it is simply not.

Statements & bills: If you cannot find a way to send them to me electronically, then although I may pay them electronically (because that is more convenient for me), I will not turn off the paper bill.

Other communication / letters: If you cannot communicate with me in the channel of my choice – email, then sadly you are only left with paper / phone.

Bottom line: in order to change consumer behavior, you have to provide alternative solutions that are at the very least as convenient as the current one, but preferably more.

(PS – Nobody cares how ‘green’ paperless is if it's less convenient than the paper option. This is clearly shown by the fact that after 7 years of trying, 97% of all consumers are still getting all the paper they did before. In fact, now they are also getting all the paper communication about their online initiatives too.)

Garin Toren
Chief Operating Officer
www.striata.com

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

I’ve been Phished, Again!

With half of the Internet users in the UK now banking online it’s hardly surprising that phishing is on the rise. As new customers migrate to more convenient banking processes the number of potential targets for phishers grows each week.

I’m a victim of phishing attacks each week, but as part of an antiphishing working group, I know better than to click on the links offered in my “Account Suspended” notice or “Security Upgrade” message.

The scary fact is that not everyone can detect the difference between a real email from their bank and a fraudulent one.

One reason for this problem is that banks have been systematically terrible at educating their clients (especially new and young ones) about how to recognise authentic banking emails and how to identify phishing attempts.

For years many banks stopped sending emails to their clients, only to have the phishers increase their activity to fill the gap. Without valid, authentic emails to compare to, increasing numbers of customers were being tricked into clicking on links in an email and providing their login and password details to fraudsters.

The key is not to STOP sending emails but to send MORE email. More regular, authenticated, validated email that educates users on what to expect in emails sent to them by their bank and allowing them to spot the phishing emails a mile away.

If I understand what to look for in a real Rolex watch, I won’t be duped into buying a fake one. The same principle applies to emails – banks need to educate their clients in what to expect when receiving an email from the bank. These features will be predominately visual as that is how people work, but should include partial customer data that the phishers can never amass for any size database. Alternative authentication including technical methods such as SPF and DKIM as well as digital signatures can be combined to make email the trusted communication tool it needs to be.

Phishing is a reality in today’s connected economy, but we can combine technology and education to make it less and less economically viable for the fraudsters to phish our banks.

Michael Wright
Global CEO
www.striata.com

Monday, January 11, 2010

The eBill Knows No Limits

In Asia, eBilling is becoming increasingly popular, with more and more companies launching alternatives to paper bills. Often these are simple emails with a link to a website where the bill can be viewed after logging in. But due to the typically poor take-up of this type of website based “Pull” solution, billers are now adopting email based Push eBilling, with simple pdf or html representations of the paper bill being attached to a carrier email.

As an initial step this is a better solution, however, companies are missing out on some of the main benefits of eBilling by keeping things quite this simple. The fact is that what works on paper doesn’t necessarily work on computer screens.

We can start off with the fact that paper bills are always a “portrait” layout, whereas all computer screens are “landscape”. So there’s all that wasted space at the side of the screen, but still the requirement to scroll down to see the full page. That’s one of the reasons why media websites don’t look like magazines or newspapers that create them. Secondly, the way we read a computer screen is very different from how we read a piece of paper. That’s why Amazon’s Kindle doesn’t render the text in the same way as a book does.

Our expectations of what we will be able to do with an electronic document are also different, and are set by our online experiences. We expect to be able to navigate to where we want to go quickly and intuitively, and expect to drill down into the detail of a topic by clicking a hyperlink. If we’re attracted by a sidebar advert, we expect to be taken straight to the details without losing our place on the original page. Fundamentally, when working online, we expect sensitive personal information (“Just who did you take to Ristorante Romantica last month – it wasn’t me!”) to be securely delivered and password protected in a way that ensures only the intended recipient can access it.

These expectations and behavioural patterns offer companies a huge opportunity to engage their customers at a level never before possible, and to do this every month. Simple summary bills with drill-down capabilities should be the norm. Why not graph the details for more clarity and allow the customer to sort and categorise the transactions too? Navigation within the bill is surely a given (click here to return to the top). The inclusion of carefully targeted eMarketing banners with click-thru tracking goes without saying – transpromotional marketing is one of the most effective forms of cross-selling today. Forms to allow customers to update their details should be included. Of course a printer-friendly rendition of the bill has to be available – and this can be the carbon-copy of the paper bill. Even payment by credit-card or Internet banking from within the eBill itself, without having to log on to a separate website, should be available to all.

But what of the argument that we don’t want to confuse the customer with a new bill layout, so it’s better to give them what they’re used to…? The fact is that a well designed eBill should be easier to read and understand than a paper bill and if it isn’t, there’s a problem with the design that needs to be sorted. The benefits of implementing a comprehensive eBilling solution far outweighs the concerns of customer resistance, and indeed outweigh the cost of developing such a solution.

The bill, and hence the eBill, is often the only regular communication between a service provider and customer, and is certainly the most likely communication to be opened and read in detail. As long as the functionality of the eBill is limited to giving the basic details of the cost of the service provided to the customer, this is an opportunity lost.

Paper bills and the electronic rendition of paper bills have their roots firmly entrenched in the printing technology that became available in the 19th century, and these bills haven’t changed fundamentally for 50 years or more. With communications, energy and banking technologies changing beyond all recognition in the same period, isn’t it time that billing and customer communication strategies and solutions caught up again?

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