In an ideal world, billers would love to know exactly when their paper bill arrived in the mailbox, when it was collected by the customer, how long it sat and waited for their attention, how many times the customer looked at it before writing out a check, and how long it then took to mail it back.

With a clearer understanding of how customers behave, billers would be ideally positioned to encourage faster bill payment and fewer customer service enquiries around the bill. In the world of paper billing, there are only two pieces of information available: when it was sent and when payment was received. It is almost impossible to influence processes that cannot be tracked or mapped out.

There are many advantages to electronic bill presentment and payment that have been covered in detail in previous Newsflashes.

A significant advantage that we have not touched on before is the comprehensive audit trail available to the biller throughout the secure email bill presentment and payment cycle.

Due to the electronic nature of this process, and the tracking technologies built into Striata’s secure messaging platform, billers are now able to gain deep insight into their customer's handling of their bills.

Striata’s standard eBilling functionality provides billers the following statistics: (Detailed and summary.)

• The day & time that the email bill was delivered to the recipient.
• A complete list of all bills that were not successfully delivered.
• The day & time that the recipient first opened the email bill and every time thereafter.
• When and how often each link or marketing piece was clicked on within the email bill.
• Detailed statistics around the payment of the email bill:
  • When it was paid
  • Amount paid
  • The payment method (if there was a choice)
  • When payment was processed
  • Any links clicked on in the payment confirmation email
  • Declined / failed payments
  • 'Auto-pay' application submission details

Various actions can be triggered from any of the above. For example: resend another copy of the email bill if payment is declined.

These statistics are a very powerful tool in assisting billers to understand the behavior of their customers. Marketers can also more accurately test and refine up- and cross sell offers associated with billing.