Demand Generation from Transpromo Marketing, e-Invoicing and Electronic Payment

I recently received an email from someone with the title "Demand Generation Specialist". This got me thinking – mostly about who dreams up these titles?

It dawned on me that maybe the term "Salesman" wasn't cool anymore – but I soon realised that Demand Generation is a neat new buzz word in the lexicon of sales and marketing teams. Same work – different words.

The idea is to use all sorts of media to tell people about your products and services and get them to phone you!

Wow! Novel! Gotta try that – or wait? Isn't this what marketing has been trying to do for years?

It seems as if everything is getting a coat of the coolness paint at the moment. Take the hype about Cloud computing. Cloud this and Cloud that. Not long ago we called these things SaaS (Software as a Service) which is how Striata provides a heap of our services. And before that it was ASP (Application Service Provider) and before that just 'Outsourced'.

Sidebar: The Striata Application is "Cloud Ready" – actually one better than that as we have an instance running in the "Cloud" at a Unisys data centre.

But back to demand generation...

The single most important touch point with an existing customer is their monthly bill. It has the ability to generate or prevent thousands of service calls to your call centre. But it also has the ability to generate thousands of clicks to your website.

As a demand generation tool – the old statement stuffer (now with a new coat of coolness and called "transpromo marketing", when associated with eBilling) can act as the primary cross-sell and up-sell tool for both B2C and B2B businesses.

Electronic payment confirmations or notices are also prime real estate for personalised messages. Of course you have to get this real estate in front of your customers – no use if your green programme isn't actually driving customers to your billing site and as a result they never see another bill. A case study from an Austrian company showed 85% paper turn off but only 30% of clients were accessing their eBills each month!

The current e-invoicing automation programmes are killing off demand generation from transpromo marketing. No-one sees the actual bill anymore and hence the opportunity to market new products and services is lost. Billers are asking how they can replace this vital touch point.

Whilst we are all striving to reduce paper and increase efficiencies – we would do well to remember that all business starts with a customer wanting to buy our products and services.

Maybe "demand generation" isn't such a bad term afterall...

Michael Wright
CEO - Striata
www.striata.com

Letter to the Editor

Dear Head of Online Customer Service at AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and Verizon Wireless

I recently gave some thought to your internet customer self service strategy and felt compelled to write to you.

Your website is great for only two reasons:

The first is, I can make purchases online and the second is that I can find customer service contact numbers. Sadly, for me the benefits end there.

Online purchases work for me because the alternative is either talking to customer service representatives or having to go to the store, neither of which I find to be a particularly pleasant experience. So good on all of you for enabling me to make purchases without having to meet a single staff member!

But here's what I'm never going to do at your site:

I'm not going to view my bill on your website. Why should I go to all that trouble when I can simply wait for my envelope? By the way - I can never remember my password and I really enjoy costing you $5 each time I call! (I get a kick out of that. So far in my relationship with my landline provider I am $355 up.)

If I can remember my username & password, it takes me more than 60 seconds to find my bill on the website. Sprint, I counted 27 clicks (4 minutes) Good job!

You know how long it takes me to open my envelope? 2 seconds. You do the math.

I'm not going to look at my usage. See point above - I see my usage perfectly fine on paper.

I'm not going to try and troubleshoot my problem. You know that's impossible with all the variations of devices etc. I still can't fathom why any biller would consider trying to put that online. What I will do though is find the 'contact us' page and then I'm going to call you. ($5 – "ka-ching")

I'm not going to pay my bill there. Why would I go to 12 different websites when my bank does an excellent job of allowing me to pay all of them through one location? I know the banks were a little slow to this game in the US but it's all done now. I anticipate that all consumer eBill payments will eventually be initiated through internet banking.

So… How about:

• Instead of me having to take time to visit your complicated website to view my usage, you can simply email it to me once a week?


• Instead of visiting your website to view my bill, you simply email it to me?


• Instead of notifying me that there is new information on your website for me, you simply email me that information.
  

You should know that your customers are not stupid. We will visit your website when there is something there that we want to do, like buying a new service / accessory. You do not need to con us into going there through the pretence of customer service.

I have a novel idea, why don't you email my bill to me. That way, I'll have to do nothing to get it. And I'll like you more because instead of making my life infinitely more complicated, you are actually being useful and enhancing my experience.

PS – see here in case you need a reason to stop sending me a paper bill: http://bit.ly/9vYX0l

Yours in despair

Irritated in NYC

When customers just won’t adopt

During the course of my business travels, I have been lucky enough to meet many different people from different cultures and a variety of Telco's, utilities, financial institutions and government departments around Asia. Some already have an eBilling platform in place (often a web-portal) and some are still investigating the option of developing/implementing one. But they all seem to have one thing in common - when I ask them about paper turn-off rates, either current or projected, they all look rather sheepish and start mumbling about "early days still" and "consumer adoption difficulties…"

The goal is to save money!

Let's get this clear from the start – The goal of any eBilling project is to save money! It may be sold as environmentally friendly and in some cases as a convenience tool, but organisations do this to save money. Total eBilling costs are typically 50%-80% lower than traditional mail. In the current, difficult economic climate, you'd assume that a detailed ROI analysis is done before any eBilling project kicks off - cost of project divided by savings on paper/postage.

Yet for in-house developed web-portals, I regularly see paper turn-off targets set at 3% for the first year, and even 5% over 3 years! In other words, a full-blown web-portal with detailed security and firewalls is being developed and implemented, yet 95% of the customer-base won't use it within the first 3 years. Well, there's nothing like setting your sights low…! And just how does that ROI analysis stack up? Lots of development costs today, in return for 3-5% paper-turn off over 3 years. It just doesn't add up.

When I mention that we have clients around the world, both in developed and developing countries, that have achieved 17% paper turn-off in 18 months and 60%+ paper turn-off over 5 years, that sheepish look returns with comments like "But it's different here in our country." Well, the fact is that it isn't different.

Beyond the technology, there needs to be a coherent adoption strategy

These results haven't been achieved due to some psychological propensity to eBilling inherent in certain nations or customer-bases, Striata has achieved these results, because it has 10 years of eBilling experience and has learnt from all the mistakes that in-house project teams are about to make. We understand that beyond the technology of eBilling, there needs to be a coherent adoption strategy across the organisation, supported by analytic tools that identify who is and isn't receiving and reading eBills. Cloud technology means that all this is available with minimal up-front investment and implementation timescales of weeks, not months.

It's about starting with the right ROI in mind

eBilling is a specialist area spanning technology, methodology and consumer psychology. And like any other specialist area, if you don't have the full skill-set in-house, it pays to call in the specialists. I mean, I'm sure you could fix your own car's broken gearbox if you spent enough time studying up on it, but isn't it quicker and ultimately cheaper to send it to a garage?

So the next time you're reviewing your eBilling capabilities go over your ROI calculations again. And ask yourself just what is your target paper turn-off rate for this year? If it isn't into double digits, give me a call…

Keith Russell
Sales Director - Asia Pacific
www.striata.com