Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Top eBilling Predictions for 2010

Michael Haupt (Managing Director of Striata UK) discusses his top 8 eBilling predictions for 2010:

  1. Online portal paper suppression rates will continue to disappoint;

  2. Billers will begin charging for paper bills or full detailed bills, however this will have little lasting impact on paperless adoption rates;

  3. Detailed online bill analysis will not improve paperless adoption;

  4. Integration with personal financial management tools will do little to assist with paperless adoption;

  5. Internet Banking will continue to be the most common method of eBill Payment;

  6. ‘Pushed’ email bills (delivered to the inbox) will continue to grow in popularity among consumers;

  7. Home-grown ‘Push’ eBilling solutions will disappoint because of the requirement to pre-register online;

  8. The EU proposals for electronic invoicing methods will continue to frustrate, confuse and slow down the adoption of einvoicing in Europe. This will not affect electronic invoicing adoption in the US.

Click to watch the video

Michael Haupt
Managing Director of Striata UK
www.striata.com

Monday, April 19, 2010

Marketing in the eBill: an ambush?

We’ve established the value of the marketing real estate offered within a push eBill package. The cover email, the index page, additional tabs; there are many opportunities for marketers to reach an essentially captive audience.

Everyone looks at their bills, right?

Therein lies the potential snag. Your customers read their eBill because it’s their statement or invoice and they need to take action based on the content. Now we’re adding marketing and sales information and suddenly the package isn’t just a statement, it’s also a brochure, or a billboard or a mini-website.

Is this an ambush?
Paper bill delivery provides many ways of sneaking a bit of marketing into the customer’s view. Envelope messages, statement ‘stuffers’, on-bill messages - the recipient can choose to read the marketing material or ignore it.

Marketing within the eBill is a kind of digital statement stuffer, and the recipient can either pay attention to it or decide not to.

Choosing not to click is really the same as throwing the glossy printed brochure into the recycle bin.

Then I guess the question is: can your customers currently opt out of paper bill marketing? Do you provide the option to receive a clean envelope with no marketing, so only the statement is enclosed?

Legal implication
Consumer reaction aside, there are compliance issues in regions where consumer rights are protected and where direct marketing is regulated either by law or by an industry Code of Conduct.

The ability for a consumer to Opt Out of direct marketing is entrenched in many societies. What is not clear, is whether placing marketing messages inside an operational communication like a bill is still considered direct marketing.

If it is, then the consumer has the right to Opt Out of receiving those marketing messages, meaning the Biller would have to offer a vanilla bill without any marketing flavour.

Early Days
I posed this question to a direct marketing-savvy professional whose opinion I respect, and her view was that the Bill is a natural vehicle for the marketing side of the business to leverage. In her business, as in many industries, sending a regular bill to a customer is a legislated requirement and therefore part of the cost of service. So companies must take the opportunity to maximise this customer touch point with either operational or marketing messages.

I expect, in my geography of expertise (South Africa), we will only begin to see opinion on this once the Consumer Protection Act comes into full force in October 2010.

I’d be interested to get comment from other regions as to whether there is specific legislation or codes around marketing in the eBill and if any case law exists on this niche topic.

AlisonTreadaway
Managing Director
Striata South Africa
www.striata.com

Monday, April 12, 2010

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

I recently managed to upset a large, well-respected company by declining to respond to their eBilling RFP, following a specific request from their Executive Vice President for Striata to participate. Our decision to decline certainly took them by surprise. However, based on our 11 years of experience as an eBilling specialist, we feel this company is fundamentally not going down the right strategic path. While Striata has had a great deal of success convincing companies to broaden their thinking on eBilling, many RFP's are just too far off the "strategy" that we would advocate for their customer base.

Most procurement teams tasked with creating an eBilling RFP are in a very tough spot because the market information on successful EBPP solutions is limited and adoption results are mediocre at best. As such, the majority of RFP's request a thorough analysis of how to build an eBilling website. I'm not saying the portal model is completely the wrong approach. However, in our experience, if this is the ONLY eBilling option you're offering your customers - even with extensive marketing - you're unlikely to achieve critical mass. Without critical mass, all the rich functionality that your proposed solution will offer is wasted.

What most companies don't understand is that eBilling is not about systems and technology as much as it is about providing a customer-friendly replacement for paper communications. Striata has a growing base of more than 250 clients achieving exponentially higher adoption success than the industry average. Why? It is our ability to generate significant ground swell within the client's customer base by giving them an intuitive customer experience, rather than repeating the same mistakes of every other eBilling portal project. Many of our clients globally tried the portal model first (and failed) before enlisting Striata's help. Those who selected Striata achieved a rapid ROI, together with substantial ongoing savings, dramatically reduced payment cycles (DSO) and enhanced customer experience.

eBilling success is measured by adoption and resultant savings, not by features and functionality offered. The majority of your customers are always going to take the path of least resistance. They DON'T want a complicated enrolment, log-in and search process in order to "access" their bill. That just doesn't constitute a convenient replacement for the paper copy. In order to achieve maximum customer adoption, you have to make their lives simpler in terms of viewing and paying the bill.

Another key success factor is working with an eBilling specialist with a proven track record (like Striata) to develop a clear customer-centric adoption strategy that is specifically tailored to your audience.

As an organization, it's essential that you start thinking like a "customer" and adopt a customer friendly strategy and experience that drives the right paperless behaviour.

Barrie Arnold
Vice President of Sales
www.striata.com