Maximize Customer Adoption
It's rare  to find a bank or biller today that doesn't allow you to manage your account and pay your bills online. However, biller web sites have not yet fully realized the cost benefits of their online bill payment portals, because these sites are not successfully driving customer adoption.

Consumers are shopping, dating, playing games, listening to music and watching movies online, but the vast majority are not paying bills online and worse - they have not turned off paper. Despite almost universal internet penetration in North America and many other Western countries, customers are are still trickling to online billing in small numbers.

93% of all internet users have done some commerce related activity on the internet, and 66% have made at least one purchase online. Yet only 4 out of 10 consumers have tried online banking, and only 30% receive and pay bills online.

Customer resistance to online billing and payment

Surveys confirm that the problem is not a matter of consumer comfort with online interaction, or even concern over phishing, just a natural resistance to being forced to fetch their bills.

Offline, billers do not expect customers to line up at their place of business to find out what they owe. Online, however, that is exactly what billers expect: instead of delivering bills to customers, they require customers to retrieve their bills, and go through a rather laborious process to pay.

For most consumers, it's still more convenient to receive their bills in the mail than to retrieve them from the biller web site. Since these sites require customers to proactively enroll, alternatively, via mail,customers take no action, yet their bills continue to be delivered to them.

The simple fact is that customers do not choose to use web-based presentment and as a result, these portals have not succeeded in driving any meaningful adoption or ROI. If a provider achieves the industry average for customer adoption of less than 10% after 2-3 years, the impact on reducing the spiraling print and postage costs will be minimal, as will the effect on payment cycle reduction.

Adding the convenience factor to online billing and payment

Convenience and ease of use are what maximize paperless adoption: The convenience of Striata's solution, with its email bill presentment and payment, can help drive customer adoption, allowing both B2B and B2C organizations to complement existing self-service and e-communication strategies.

The way to do this is to continue to 'deliver' the bills, but replace the paper with securely encrypted email attachments, making it more convenient for customers to receive their bills electronically than by postal mail and more cost effective for the biller to send the bills.

Take ePayment strategies to the consumer

To gain maximum electronic payment customer adoption, billers need to take their ePayment strategies to the consumer by offering convenient and cost effective options. Delivering a 1-click payment form with an email bill ensures that:
  • Adoption is not dependent on pre-registration. The biller does not incur marketing costs to entice customers to register on their website.
  • A significant percentage of consumers will pay their eBill within a day or two of receiving it, thereby drastically reducing the number of days sales outstanding (DSO).
  • No additional electronic payment processing integration is required. Striata is able to work seamlessly with your existing ePayment processor.
  • Biller's can link customers from the email Bill to their Internet self-service portal for additional customer service, up and cross selling.