Thursday, January 26, 2012

eBilling: step into your customers' shoes

When you live and breathe eBilling and eStatements like I do (I know – I need to get a life!), it’s sometimes surprising when you hear other people’s thoughts and expectations on the subject.

I met with a major bank recently, to discuss the option of going paperless with Push eStatements. I found it interesting that the COO’s response was that in these difficult economic times, he was looking for ways to save money – not to spend money. Clearly, we had different views on this!


Few projects will yield a better ROI than paperless billing solutions

Thankfully, he was happy to set up a meeting, and I brought him around to my way of thinking by presenting some realistic projected ROI and implementation figures. The fact is that there are few projects that will yield a better ROI than paperless billing solutions.

This particular bank is also currently planning to upgrade their Internet Banking Portal, including a facility for customers to download PDF statements. Being a much larger project with longer timescales, the COO – still looking forward to the quick implementation and ROI of our solution – suggested that the email eStatement project could be a “tactical” solution until their Internet Banking portal was up and running.

So, I asked him if he would then stop the simple process of distributing eStatements to customer inboxes when his customers could:

  • go to his website...
  • dig out their ID/Password...
  • get their security token...
  • log on to the Internet Banking Portal...
  • navigate to the eStatement history page and...
  • download a PDF?
Needless to say, the meeting soon got back on track!

Most customers prefer receiving their bills by email - it's a fact!

But don’t just take my word for it. Independent research that shows three times as many people prefer eBills/eStatements to be delivered to their Inbox, rather than be displayed on a website - requiring passwords and navigation to find it.

Deliver an enhanced customer experience and watch your adoption skyrocket!

I therefore suggest that when considering introducing or enhancing a paperless process, don’t be constrained by the “we’ve always done it that way” kind of thinking. Put yourself in the shoes of your customer and ask how you can make it so convenient and such a great experience that you’d never want to see a paper bill again. How could you facilitate payments? What about including graphs that show spending trends or interactive bill data that can be sorted at will? Think about all the ways you could encourage your customers to engage with you. And if you want some good ideas, just get in touch with Striata and we’ll show you some cool stuff!

And look out for a future blog on “Implementing eStatements for a major bank in Asia Pacific"....

Keith Russell
striata.com

Thursday, January 19, 2012

eBilling adoption rates - What's a realistic goal for 2012?

As an eBilling practitioner, the bad news is that you are probably falling short of your target numbers. The good news is that it’s not your fault - but this may not prevent you from getting the axe.

Board level expectations of 15% eBilling adoption per annum are normal. In today’s connected society where we are online more than offline and 'going green' is on everyone’s agenda, turning off paper for the majority of customers within 5 years should be a reasonable expectation.


What is preventing eBilling from achieving significant customer adoption?

Realistically, allowing for a quarter of your client base to stick to paper for various reasons, the goal should be 75% customer adoption and paper turn off.

While it is true that poor craftsmen blame their tools, you may have a valid case to point at your portal model as the reason for missing your adoption targets.

Portals (or Pull eBilling) are only one part of a comprehensive eBilling strategy. Globally, approximately only 17% of customers are perfectly happy to go back to the biller’s website or a consolidator to fetch their bills – but these customers aren’t the majority of the base. The majority will choose to do nothing.

This is where email billing (or Push eBilling) comes to the fore. Armed with your customers email addresses, you can send secure bills or statements without requiring customers to register and choose a username and password. This puts the power of customer adoption in your hands. Customers that receive their bill by email can’t resist opening it - this allows the biller to turn off the paper.

How to achieve a customer adoption rate exceeding 15% pa

Across all industries, the average annual paperless adoption rate falls below 10% and the most common point of failure is the registration process. By including an electronic consent form in the eBilling process, you have a sure-fire way of driving customer adoption over 15% pa. The eConsent process presents the terms & conditions and an agreement to turn off the paper.

Striata customers are routinely achieving adoption rates that are double their industry averages this way.

Striata provides services and strategies to many well known utility brands, by assisting them implement email billing as part of their paperless strategy. These clients are successfully using Striata solutions to replace paper intensive processes with electronic bill presentment and payment and as a result, are seeing a surge in electronic payments and paperless adoption.

What is a realistic paperless goal?

A fully functionally document distribution strategy should have the 3 P’s – Print Pull and Push.

Print may never go away, so expect 25% of your base to cling onto paper.

Pull Portals should be good for another 25% of customers in the long run but at least half of these may want paper as well as a backup.

Push email document delivery will quickly turn off paper for the other 50% of your customers without massive marketing and incentive spend.

Executives are not setting ridiculous success targets. Annual double digit growth is reasonable, but you need the right tools to deliver the right results. Find out how.

Michael Wright
striata.com

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Need to exchange that sale item but don't have the receipt?

An ingenious application of the humble transactional email is the electronic retail receipt. How many times have you wanted to exchange a purchase, only to find that the receipt has disappeared into the black hole that is your wallet?

Enter digital retail receipts


Picture yourself at the checkout point in your favourite department store, arms full of January sale items or unwanted Christmas gifts...


Sound crazy?

Not to the big brand stores that are already operating a paperless receipt service. According to the New York Times , you will be offered an electronic receipt when you shop at stores such as Apple, Sears, Kmart, Gap and Banana Republic. And it's not the first time this concept has made headlines. But what's driving this renewed interest in electronic till slips?

For the retailer:

  • Going paperless - digital receipts bolster a business's environmental efforts
  • Cost reduction - reducing paper and printing costs is a major benefit for margin-sensitive retailers
  • Future view - coupled with cellphone payment processes, the digital receipt rounds off a totally mobile, electronic process
  • Marketing – perhaps the most attractive benefit is that the retailer now has your email address

For you, the consumer:

  • Easy storage – no more wads of paper slips stuck in the zip pocket of your handbag or stuffed into a drawer in your study
  • Searchable – no more rifling through said handbag and/or drawer to locate a receipt
  • Sendable – bought a gift for a friend who wants to exchange it?
  • Easy – send them the digital receipt (make sure there are no embarrassing purchases on the same receipt!)

Of course there are challenges and concerns around queue delays, fraud, data errors and privacy, but none of them compelling enough to offset the obvious benefits. As consumers store more and more of their daily interactions electronically (bills, policies, contracts, payment confirmations, paystubs), it makes perfect sense that retail receipts should follow suit.

And think about the convenience when it comes to filing your tax return. Instead of rifling through the shoebox of till slips, you have a folder in your email application in which you have stored all of your deductible expense receipts. What a relief.

Just remember to back up your email records!

Alison Treadaway
striata.com