"eBill penetration
~ gaining significant customer adoption"
Billers who are responsible
for or involved with running an eBill program
are faced with the challenges of customer adoption.
"Electronic Bill Presentment
& Payment" (EBPP) has been around for
many years now, yet adoption rates continue to
fall dismally short of expectations.
In the Utility industry for
example, 7% or 8% is considered 'high' adoption.
Most utility billers are experiencing adoption
rates of 2% to 4%. Yet all indications are that
Internet usage has exceeded 70% of Americans.
So why the disparity? What is it going to take
to get the majority of customers to have a electronic
billing relationship with you?
Some factors which inhibit eBill
penetration include:
- Just under 60% of Americans
are still dialing up to the internet at speed
of 56bps or less. (This figure is much higher
in less urban areas.) To register and use a
secure EBPP website at modem speed is just not
feasible.
- Marketers are having difficulty
effectively communicating the benefits to the
consumer.
- Email continues to be the
communication medium of choice, yet most billers
only offer internet website presentment.
- Enticing the customer to
go online & register is expensive and generally
yields poor results. Ask your customers to do
anything and you can rest assured that 90% of
them will not.
- Customers continually forget
their usernames & passwords, resulting in
expensive phone calls to your customer service
center.
- It takes between 7 and 24
clicks for a customer to find and pay their
built. That is just far to many. Secure Email
EBPP can be as few as 2 clicks, one to view
and one to pay.
- Security fears such as Phishing
are still hindering online payment.
Whilst Striata is relatively
new to the US market, we do bring with us many
years of experience from abroad. Here are some
of the lessons that we have learned from our many
customers in the Financial Services, Telco and
Utility industries:
- Sign up all new customers
for your eBill program. Do it automatically
and with no action required from the customer.
- Initiate an automated welcome
email telling the customer what to expect.
- Then just begin delivering
the bill electronically. A small percentage
will opt-out, but the vast majority will accept
it. Adoption therefore becomes equal to the
number of email addresses you have. (Note ~
well over 70% of Americans are now using email
regularly.)
- Offer simple bill
presentment via secure email as the
first step. (With links to online payment &
self service if required.) It's not necessary
to try and 'pull' the customer to your website
to achieve successful eBill presentment.
- Take it one step
at a time. Achieve bill presentment and paper
truncation first. Then drive payment as the
next step. It could be too much to try and do
both at once.
- Replicate your paper bill
into a digital format ~ familiarity
drives acceptance. You can always add
additional functionality later.
- Replace customer choice username
& passwords with a 'shared secret'
between the biller & the customer. (For
example: Social Security Number, Account number,
pin code.)
- Use Opt-out
rather than opt-in strategies. Customers expect
you to bill them, an eBill is not a pure marketing
communication but can form part of a marketing
stragey.
- Automatic paper truncation
with the ability to revert to the paper option.
When your customers are familiar with the eBill,
turn off the paper automatically
- you will be surprised how few requests you
will get to reinstitute their paper bill.
- Sell the eBill concept to
everybody who calls your customer service
centre. Sign them up 'there and then'
during the call.
In order to drive significant
eBill adoption you need to actively strive to
make it as easy as possible for your customer
to receive and pay their bill electronically.
By dramatically reducing what the customer has
to 'do', your eBill adoption
will soar. |
