Is it time to end Usernames & Passwords forever?

Do you hate usernames and passwords as much as your customers do?

Choosing and remembering multiple usernames and passwords for eBilling and self serve portals is a poor customer experience and incredibly expensive for billers. It is furthermore one of the most significant barriers to paper suppression.

Uniquely chosen usernames and passwords are intended to make websites secure, but instead, billers are simply passing the responsibility of security onto their users. In many instances, this is accompanied by predatory terms and conditions (read this blog post: Check the small print, you assume all the risk)

In truth, consumers do an extremely poor job of securing their access:

• One in ten still regularly use the word 'password'
• One in four use their mother's maiden name
• 15% use a pet's name and 10% a child's name
• Only 3% use a random password
• 30% of users have forgotten their password

Source: TNS/OneVu 2007

Customers just don't want it!

Customers are constantly telling us that the username and password process is not desirable. The December 2010, InfoTrends eBilling Report showed that 61% of consumers surveyed said that remembering multiple unique usernames and passwords remains a barrier to paperless adoption.

Not convenient for billers either

One of the biggest complaints from billers utilizing self-serve portals is the thousands of phone calls to their call centres every month from customers who have forgotten their login details. Each call costs the biller an average of $3.50 to $8.00. Online self service was meant to be cheaper and more convenient. Unfortunately in many cases it is neither. This is particularly so in circumstances where the customer rarely visits the biller's portal. This includes utilities, insurance companies and telecommunication service providers.

To date, the primary reason for customers visiting a biller's website was to make a payment. With the trend moving away from biller direct to internet banking bill pay, even this reason is dissipating.

Does eBilling have to come at the cost of customer convenience?

If username and password authentication is a poor customer experience, expensive for the biller, as well as a security risk; then how does one protect sensitive customer information and deliver on convenience, while moving to a paperless eBilling solution? Is there a way to provide an eBilling solution that is secure, cost efficient and most of all – convenient enough for the customer to turn off paper?

While it is in the interest of the biller to pull customers to their website in order to cross-sell and up-sell other goods and services, inconveniencing the customer in the process seems paradoxical.

If billers could truly deliver the bill electronically (as opposed to creating a 'fetch' scenario), they would also have a way to market to that consumer intelligently, and most importantly, in a cost effective way that is actually more convenient for the consumer.

Should additional self-service be available on the biller's website, then you can always drive them there after satisfying the primary purpose of bill delivery.

Creating the best possible customer experience:

1. Gain consent from the customer to go paperless without requiring a website registration.

2. Eliminate website registration (the number one barrier to paper suppression) by auto registering the customer at your self-serve portal and let them know that you have done so.

3. Utilize two to three simple questions to authenticate their portal access (think about when you called your bank recently, chances are they asked you 3 to 4 simple questions about yourself that only you could logically know the answers to).

4. Only ask them to choose a username and password if they are going to access the website very regularly and the question process in point 3 above is too lengthy for daily use.

For example: If I'm only visiting my insurer's website a few times a year, then asking me 2/3 simple questions is far more convenient than asking me to remember a username and password I chose 6 months ago. If I am accessing my Internet Banking more than once a week, then of course in this instance a username and password is the more convenient option.

Customers will turn off paper as long as it's convenient to do so, and while redundant authentication processes remain, eBilling adoption just won't happen.

Let's end consumer frustration and expensive customer care phone calls once and for all.