This is a tidied up transcript from actual customer call to Striata Support in the USA in May of 2010:
Striata Support: "Thank you for calling Striata Support, this is Glenn, to whom am I speaking?"
Customer: "This is Diane Hughes"
Striata Support: "Good morning Ms.Hughes, how may I assist you today?"
Diane Hughes: "I received an email from my local utility asking me to sign up to get my utility bill electronically. I cannot however see where to do so?"
Striata Support: "Ms. Hughes, can you see the button in the body of the email that says "One-Click Signup""
Diane Hughes: "Yes, I can see that."
Striata Support: "Did you click it yet?"
Diane Hughes: "Yes I did. I got a pop up telling me that I was now enrolled in eBilling and that I would get my next bill electronically. But I didn't choose any username & password yet?"
Striata Support: "Yes that is correct. There is no username & password to choose. There is also no website to visit. Your next bill will arrive as a secure attachment to a personalized email from your local utility. You will be able to open it by simply entering the last four digits of your social security number. Once you have done that, you will be looking at a digital replica of your paper bill. Simple as that. You can also open it on an email enabled mobile device."
Diane Hughes: "So I don't have to go to any website, it just arrives?"
Striata Support: "That is correct ma'am."
Diane Hughes: "Ok, so how do I pay it?"
Striata Support: "Ms.Hughes, can you see an attachment to the email you are looking at?"
Diane Hughes: "Yes I can, it's a PDF?"
Striata Support: "Great, please open that and look at the first page."
Diane Hughes: "Ok, I have it."
Striata Support: "Can you see the payment form?"
Diane Hughes: "Yes I can."
Striata Support: "Great, so when your first bill arrives, you will simply enter your checking account and routing number into those fields. You only have to do this once. From then on it will be pre-filled out for you but hashed out for security purposes. So from month 2 it's as easy as opening the PDF with one click, checking that you are comfortable that the amount due is correct, and then you can pay with just one more click."
Diane Hughes: "So I pay from within the PDF? Is there no website I have to go and login to?"
Striata Support: "No ma'am, it's as simple as just two clicks, no website to visit at all. Your full bill detail is also included in the PDF along with any other information that used to be in the paper envelope."
Diane Hughes: "Ok, that really is easy, thank you, I understand. Are you sure I don't have to register somewhere?"
Striata Support: "Yes Ms.Hughes, we have purposefully removed any need to register, choose and remember usernames & passwords, or link back to any website, to make it easy for you."
Diane Hughes: "I see that, that is really easy."
Striata Support: "Have I answered all your questions today?"
Diane Hughes: "Yes, thank you, that is clear to me now. I didn't think it could be so easy but I see that it is."
Striata Support: "Thank you for calling Striata Ms.Hughes, we hope you have a wonderful day."
Diane Hughes: "Thank you, you too Glenn."
Garin Toren
Chief Operating Officer, America
www.striata.com
Friday, June 11, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Striata Supports World Environment Day
This Saturday, June 5th is World Environment Day . Established by the UN General Assembly in 1972, this annual celebration promotes awareness of environmental issues through rallies, clean-ups, festivals, concerts and community events.
The theme for 2010 is 'Many Species. One Planet. One Future.' with a special focus on biodiversity and promoting the green economy.
Why is this in a blog about eBilling, I hear you ask?
Well, if like me, you aren’t attending a rally or a festival on June 5th and haven’t planned to support a community event, then maybe your conscience is looking for a small gesture that can add your voice to the green anthem.
Here’s my suggestion:
If everyone who reads this blog (l’ll smugly say about 100,000 readers) converts 5 paper bills to email, we could save a million sheets of paper every month. That’s 12 million sheets per year.
That’s a lot of paper saved, a lot of trees spared, and a whole heap of energy savings.
World Environment Day is about empowering people to become active agents of sustainable development, and promoting the understanding that communities are pivotal agents of change.
So don’t keep the idea to yourself.
Let’s join up and become the eBilling Community. Let’s be the people that refuse to accept paper bills, and who write persuasive letters to CEO’s of companies that don’t have an electronic billing alternative.
On Saturday, when Prime Ministers and Ministers of Environmental Affairs deliver statements and commit themselves to caring for the Earth, let’s make one simple pledge: No more paper!
It’s much easier than planting a tree and it shouldn’t cost you more than an email or call to your service provider.
Try it. Go paperless! You’ll feel good about your contribution.
Alison Treadaway
Managing Director, Africa
www.striata.com
The theme for 2010 is 'Many Species. One Planet. One Future.' with a special focus on biodiversity and promoting the green economy.
Why is this in a blog about eBilling, I hear you ask?
Well, if like me, you aren’t attending a rally or a festival on June 5th and haven’t planned to support a community event, then maybe your conscience is looking for a small gesture that can add your voice to the green anthem.
Here’s my suggestion:
- Go to your postbox
- Count the paper bills you receive each month
- Promise yourself that you’ll convert at least 50% of your paper bills to email delivery
If everyone who reads this blog (l’ll smugly say about 100,000 readers) converts 5 paper bills to email, we could save a million sheets of paper every month. That’s 12 million sheets per year.
That’s a lot of paper saved, a lot of trees spared, and a whole heap of energy savings.
World Environment Day is about empowering people to become active agents of sustainable development, and promoting the understanding that communities are pivotal agents of change.
So don’t keep the idea to yourself.
Let’s join up and become the eBilling Community. Let’s be the people that refuse to accept paper bills, and who write persuasive letters to CEO’s of companies that don’t have an electronic billing alternative.
On Saturday, when Prime Ministers and Ministers of Environmental Affairs deliver statements and commit themselves to caring for the Earth, let’s make one simple pledge: No more paper!
It’s much easier than planting a tree and it shouldn’t cost you more than an email or call to your service provider.
Try it. Go paperless! You’ll feel good about your contribution.
Alison Treadaway
Managing Director, Africa
www.striata.com
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Apple overtakes Microsoft. Is the same happening in the world of eBilling?
Last week, Apple overtook Microsoft as the world's most valuable technology company. Wall Street has called it "the end of an era and the beginning of the next one."
"Microsoft depends more on maintaining the status quo, while Apple is in a constant battle to one-up itself and create something new", said Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook.
While Microsoft has struggled to develop desirable updates to its primary products and to create significant new businesses in areas like music players, phones, game consoles and Web search. Apple's rapid expansion and market value is the result of being agile and innovative.
Apple anticipates what consumers want
Apple’s renaissance began with the launch of the iPod music player, and with it came visionary Chief Executive, Steve Jobs’ reputation for anticipating what consumers want. Since then, Mr Jobs and Apple have focused on providing consumers with the best possible experience – in the best computer, the best portable music device, the best smartphone and most recently the best tablet in the iPad.
As audacious as it is to compare Striata to Apple, there are a number of fascinating similarities.
Since the company’s inception in 1999, everyone at Striata has been asking: Where will consumers want to view and pay bills in 3 years time? Where and on what kind of devices will they be viewing policies, contracts, annual reports, investment information and marketing?
The old guard and traditional market leaders in eBilling like CheckFree (now part of Fiserv) as well as the large print companies such as Kubra and DST Output, are all scrambling to develop their own versions of Striata’s award-winning PUSH eBilling technology. This is a testament to our continuous innovation and customer adoption rates, which are as high as 67% for consumer billing and 98% for commercial billing!
So the question you need to ask is: Do you want to work with a company that is developing technology to meet current market demands, or the company that has led virtually every innovation in this space for the past decade?
Should we expect Wall Street to call it "the end of an eBilling era and the beginning of the next one?" It’s quite possible.
Keen to be a part of the new eBilling era? Tell us what the future of eBilling looks like for you…
Barrie Arnold
Vice President of Sales, America
www.striata.com
"Microsoft depends more on maintaining the status quo, while Apple is in a constant battle to one-up itself and create something new", said Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook.
While Microsoft has struggled to develop desirable updates to its primary products and to create significant new businesses in areas like music players, phones, game consoles and Web search. Apple's rapid expansion and market value is the result of being agile and innovative.
Apple anticipates what consumers want
Apple’s renaissance began with the launch of the iPod music player, and with it came visionary Chief Executive, Steve Jobs’ reputation for anticipating what consumers want. Since then, Mr Jobs and Apple have focused on providing consumers with the best possible experience – in the best computer, the best portable music device, the best smartphone and most recently the best tablet in the iPad.
As audacious as it is to compare Striata to Apple, there are a number of fascinating similarities.
- Striata has a dedicated commitment to designing technology and strategies around consumer preferences (as opposed to software based on billing and document management systems)
- Continuous innovation to produce cutting edge eBilling / eDelivery solutions and adoption methodologies, while everyone else continues down the path of the status quo - fighting low adoption rates with the traditional portal-based presentment model.
- Investing heavily in R&D, not for the present, but for how consumers will want to interact with companies in the future.
Since the company’s inception in 1999, everyone at Striata has been asking: Where will consumers want to view and pay bills in 3 years time? Where and on what kind of devices will they be viewing policies, contracts, annual reports, investment information and marketing?
The old guard and traditional market leaders in eBilling like CheckFree (now part of Fiserv) as well as the large print companies such as Kubra and DST Output, are all scrambling to develop their own versions of Striata’s award-winning PUSH eBilling technology. This is a testament to our continuous innovation and customer adoption rates, which are as high as 67% for consumer billing and 98% for commercial billing!
So the question you need to ask is: Do you want to work with a company that is developing technology to meet current market demands, or the company that has led virtually every innovation in this space for the past decade?
Should we expect Wall Street to call it "the end of an eBilling era and the beginning of the next one?" It’s quite possible.
Keen to be a part of the new eBilling era? Tell us what the future of eBilling looks like for you…
Barrie Arnold
Vice President of Sales, America
www.striata.com
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