Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Lost your identity by changing your emails?

We have been busy testing some new internal systems over the past month and I realized how a small change can have a profound effect. 

I see myself as a pretty tech savvy person, but when something as simple as the background color of an application changed, it just did not “feel” right and actually affected my productivity. Now let’s not even talk about the fact that the buttons moved! I was a mess.

Is this how email users feel when they receive a regular email that’s undergone a radical new design and layout? 

Stick to industry standards

Consider that some elements just work the way they are and email users expect them to appear in a certain way - based on other emails they receive.
email-structure-layout

So, i everybody knows what these mean: 
social-media
....  don’t change them too radically
caligraphic-icons
be creative, but apply them in such a way that they are still obvious. 
flip-flop-icon

Be creative but respect your brand

Give your customers the best opportunity to become acquainted with your brand by maintaining consistency on your website and across all your email communications, marketing collateral, transactional messages and eDocuments. 

And remember that branding also applies to your tone; keep it consistent across all your communications.


Test, test and test again!

Usability testing is essential and A/B testing is also great for testing at each stage of the migration if you believe the new idea is better. 

If you feel your current emails are not working for you, rather make subtle changes and migrate slowly, than a 'big bang everything is new' update. If you are doing a rebrand or just revamping, email is a great channel to announce the change to customers, so they know what to expect. 

Striata can advise you on all aspects of email, including layout, best practices, campaign ideas and deliverability - Get your emails right! Contact us or let us call you back


Linda Misauer
striata.com

Infographic: Why email wins for paperless billing - hands down

Does your customer have to go through a maze to retrieve their eBill? 

I looked at my billing portfolio this week; I have 4 banking relationships (with different products in each) plus 1 off-shore, 3 utility providers, 3 telco contracts, private health insurance, short term insurance through one insurer and various investments and policies that I run through a broker. That’s a minimum of 14 bills/statements demanding my attention in a given month. 

Then I drew a picture of my paperless experiences with different billers and represented everything I have to do with a dotted line [ ----- ] to retrieve and then pay my various bills and statements in a paperless environment. 

Sometimes a picture speaks a thousand words!

The maze is crazy!!! But what stands out most is the clear difference between my experience between billers that use a Pull vs. Push model. Throw in a few consolidator models (which I am steering clear of) and it’s no wonder 80% of consumers (all like me and you) choose to hold onto the paper bill. 

Give me the option between email bill delivery or online retrieval, my choice is clear. Enough said.

why-email-wins-for-paperless-billing

view-infographic-why-email-wins-for-paperless-billing


Tamara Hanley
striata.com

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

80% of Electronic Payments begin with a paper bill

In the USA today, almost all electronic payments begin with a paper bill. * By their actions, US consumers are telling us quite clearly:


  • Electronic payments are MORE convenient than posting a check.
  • Paperless billing at websites is LESS convenient than receiving a paper bill.

As long as fetching their bill from your website is the only paperless option, the majority of consumers will stick to receiving their bill through the USPS. 

(To skip the why and simply go to the solution to this dilemma, click here.) 



Why 70% of your customers will never go paperless at your website

Here’s what consumers are telling us: 

  • Everybody hates usernames & passwords. They don't want website registrations (they don't even want the ones they already have).
  • They don't want to navigate mobile websites (which require usernames & passwords too).
  • They don't want another app (and yet another username and password) just to go paperless.
  • They want to view and pay their bill on any device, at any time.
  • They want to be able to view and pay their bill just as quickly and easily as opening a paper bill.

The last eight years were about electronic payment. The next four years are going to be about paperless adoption. 

Unfortunately the solutions that exist today are failing to meet the consumer’s needs. 


What are your choices for driving paperless adoption?

  1. You can try spending more on marketing your website. It may help marginally, but at what point does the cost of acquiring a paperless customer exceed the savings? (Unfortunately incentives hardly move the needle at all.)
  2. You can try integrating with one or more of the new consolidator players. Sadly they are all failing to gain any significant traction and are unlikely to meaningfully impact your paper suppression goals. In addition, there are now three of them, so do you do all three integrations or just choose one? (We’d suggest you wait and see on that front.) Most importantly, do you really want to let go of this important customer touch point?
  3. Do you build a mobile app? A far lower percentage of consumers will download your app than those already registered on your portal. You aren’t going to achieve higher paper suppression this way either.
  4. Another good notification channel is text messaging / SMS, but again, not one that will help you drive paper turn off.
  5. Do you add another electronic delivery channel? Offering eBill delivery via email is an extremely successful paper suppression option. It’s device agnostic, does not require any marketing dollars and immediately saves you 80% of your paper bill costs for each customer that chooses this option.


Here’s how you solve the paperless adoption challenge:

econsent-process
Step1:Obtain your customer's email address. (Ask us how )
Step2:Get one click paperless consent in the email channel:
  • Do not require registration at a website
  • Do not require a username and password choice
Step3:Auto register them at your portal (Ask us how)
Step4:Deliver an electronic replica of the bill as an encrypted PDF email attachment with no software download or app required
Step5:Enable payment directly from this attachment (on any device)
Step6:Drive website self service from the email and attachment

Give us 20 minutes of your time and we’ll show you just how we have done this for dozens of the largest brands across four continents. 




* How do we get to that number?

  • Less than 20% of US consumers are enrolled for paperless billing.
  • More than 30% of US billers still do not offer a paperless option.
  • 60% to 80% of all US bill payments are now electronic. (For example: According to a December 2012 Western Union® Payments Money Mindset Index survey, only 28% of bills are now paid through non-electronic methods.)

Garin Toren 

striata.com