Not every customer will react in the same way to a company’s preferred paperless route. Customers want choice.
Striata’s expert bloggers discuss and share tips on various topics related to digital customer communications.
Maximize paperless adoption - customer choice is key!
Trending: Mobile payment
Sending an eBill without an embedded payment facility is like sending a birthday invite without putting the address on it. Cue the Mobile payment
UX: Are you designing based on perceived user experiences?
Make sure that you always have the end user in the forefront of your mind when you’re Sketching, Wireframing and Designing
Faster payments with mobile eBills & a digital wallet
What’s the fundamental reason why billers send statements & invoices? The obvious answer is that it prompts their customers to pay.
Responsive design techniques for tables
There are still many arguments, topics and discussions on the many ways of coding for responsive design.
You know you're an email marketer when...
I am an email marketing geek and I know quite a few email marketing geeks
6 Lessons about email from ‘How I Met Your Mother’
Applying the lessons about email from one of my all time favourite sitcoms with my work passion – email.
Insights to a paperless future
The report is a 150 page + tome of facts and figures. It’s the bible in terms of developments & trends in the eInvoicing & eBilling world
How to leverage proactive consent emails for successful eBilling adoption
Companies looking for ways to get their customers to convert from paper bills to eBilling and consent to emails.
The 9 Big Rules that make our company Awesome
We believe that a warm, collaborative & fun company culture will sustain our business in subtle ways that we may never fully quantify.
7 Email marketing predictions - for the remainder of 2015
Besides hyper personalization and mobile what are the other trends we need to keep an eye on?
Google, Gmail and the Pony Express of billing
Dubbed ‘Pony Express’ for now, it is a service that allows customers to receive and pay their bills within the Gmail interface.
Squash phishing by educating customers
What steps are you taking to protect your customers from phishing?
Secure your Inbox!
Hillary Clinton made headlines the last few weeks by using her personal email address, instead of a State Department issued one. Need more advice on email security?
89% of global banks are investing in new customer communication channels - shouldn’t you?
Pushing documents as secure attachments through email (PUSH) is a complementary strategy that offers yet another option for your customers.
Your digital communications strategy: Mobile push notifications complimentary, but Email still king.
Use mobile push notifications; social media; instant messaging. But don’t forget about the most important tool of them all – EMAIL.
Electronic Acceptance (South Africa): Just as legal as paper and pen
Would you like to save time, resource and cost? Yes. Would you like to reduce your risk of falling victim to fraud? Yes. Electronic acceptance.
The online bill is dead. Long live the email bill!
It’s clear that expecting customers to fetch their bills off a web portal, is killing the bill. Long live the email bill – directly to your inbox
4 Ways to 'spice up' your Valentine's Day email campaigns
Check out our Valentine’s Day Infographic. There are some great tips that will help you plan your Valentine’s Day email marketing campaigns …
4 Security areas you should focus on
Over years we have not only seen an increase in the number of cyber-attacks, but also an upward trend in the sheer amount of stolen data.
eDocument security - checklist for your service provider
Sending eDocuments (electronic documents) may sound as easy as attaching a password protected PDF to an email & pressing send…
Email compliance with award winning electronic customer communications
Our fully compliant process was recently recognised for its innovation & value at the Debt Collections Awards 2014 by the Credit Today’s
Top 4 eBilling tips for 2015
If you implemented your eBilling solution a while ago you probably don’t feel the need to review it, right? Wrong
5 Tips on how to be more vigilant about online security
In today’s connected world, we have to be ever more vigilant about our online security. What measures are you taking?
Customer Experience and the Humble Bill
If you’re looking to restock your Customer Experience and fire off another salvo at the competition, include interactive eBilling.
Don't let postal strikes affect your business, consider email delivery instead
Imagine the Internet went on strike. The World Wide Web downed tools and began negotiating for better pay and improved working conditions.
The complexity of passwords
A Golden Rule of passwords: On a long enough timeline, the security of every password drops to zero. Alex talks about World Password Day and the positive impact complexity of passwords has.
"POODLE" Web browser vulnerability - what you need to know
Striata is aware of the SSLv3 security vulnerability published by Google on Tuesday 14th October 2014, called POODLE
3 Building blocks for a great B2B email content strategy
A properly thought out B2B email strategy will go a long way to making the time you invest in your email marketing so much more valuable.
4 Tips and tricks to drive engagement with your brand through digital communications
Digital channels are ideal for customer communications based on a host of reasons: reduced cost, better customer experience, etc.
Your digital customers will increase revenue and lower expenses
Just as we’ve seen in the payment space, the more options you give a customer, the more likely and quicker they are to make that payment.
Overcome the challenges of self service payment
There’s no doubt that self service portals and mobile messaging/apps are the hope of many billers when it comes to operational savings and speedy payments.
5 Ways to design your emails for interruption
When a user is interacting with mobile devices, he or she could be doing so from anywhere & while doing anything else
Is your communications agency read for POPI?
You need to ensure you and your service providers are preparing for the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI).
How to protect your data from social engineers and other security threats
The modern hacking criminal is a con-man, well-spoken and knows how to gain your trust using a number of techniques and tactics.
How effective customer communications can help keep all customers engaged (and feel loved)
Hands up who feels a real strong bond with their bank? Anyone got a hug for their bank manager?
EU Laws for electronic invoicing - how to comply …
Electronic Invoicing is taking off in a big way as companies recognise the opportunity to decrease costs in print, postage and time
Striata supports safer email - in a secure, encrypted attachment
Prevention is the best approach to avoid unlawful interception of your personal information. Simply don’t put it in the body of an email.
6 Ways to comply with regulations without overcomplicating your eDocument strategy
When you sent a paper bill – did you have to prove your customer opened their envelope that contained their bill? Do you have an eDocument strategy?
5 Ways to enrich your rewards program and gain customer loyalty
How would you answer this question: Can you buy customer loyalty?
Billentis Report 2014 - E-Invoicing|E-Billing
There are over 500 billion bills/invoices exchanged globally each year according to the 2014 Billentis report.
Secure Customer Communication Management - A lesson from Latin America...
Lessons learnt from Latin America. It’s all about convenience and the world we live in perpetuates this trend.
Digging deeper into email…
Email is pretty simple right? It can get a little confusing when you start digging a little deeper & configuring your deliverability & authentication …
Is your email design just decoration?
Sharing knowledge between creative teams and the analytics department is absolutely necessary.
An Important Update - Adobe Reader Plugin
Issues where customers open their Hotmail or Gmail emails in a browser and it doesn’t download the PDF document using Adobe Reader.
Customers want important communications emailed to them
Trends dictate many of the decisions made by companies, but it is always interesting to see whether they align with consumers’ want.
What makes flat design so appealing?
At the very heart of it, flat design takes away all of the unnecessary items and replaces them with, well… nothing.
If Disney did eBilling…
Taking the fundamental Disney approach to customer service and apply it to eBilling, what would you get? Hammer House of Horrors? Magic?
Why we believe hiring for skills over culture fit is a mistake
In our organization, we’ve learnt that appointing skills over culture fit is a mistake that will cost the business in the long run
Use the power of email to reduce your DSO
With the correct foresight and planning, the power of email can become one of the biggest driving factors in reducing DSO.
Gmail launches another innovation into the list management space
Gmail has launched an Auto-Unsubscribe feature which places an unsubscribe link next to the ‘from’ address
8 Ways email can improve your customers’ online shopping experience
Many retailers have failed to offer a comparable customer experience when shopping in-store and online. It’s evident that online shoppers want convenience and a great experience
No more BIG data and creepy marketing - personalize emails with customer email billing data instead
The year of Not-So-Big Data, and keep everybody happy – the customer, the Marketing department and the bean-counters!
Paperholics - Your biller needs a 12 step program! Specialized intervention needed…
Paperholics print documents to read later & they get all their statements and invoices through the post.
Is your customer loyalty program mobile ready?
The digital savvy consumer therefore has the power and ability to buy what they want, when they want, how they want.
eBilling for Silverbacks
Why not investigate how your older customers interact with your current billing technology? Most countries are dealing with an aging population …
The synergy of Push and Pull communications
In all communications with our clients, we can push information to them via email, and then pull them to the website / portal to enhance the experience.
Gmail image changes - what this means for you…
Gmail is now pre-loading images in email. Here is some of what these Gmail image changes means for you and your marketing and billing campaigns
If you build it (properly), they will come
Companies need to know how to build a successful loyalty program. This will save the reputation of their brand, but ensure their customers keep coming back
What is customer service anyway?
Seventy percent of persons from higher-income households ($125,000 +) are more loyal to companies that offer rewards programs and great customer service.
eBilling Legislation - 6 ways Striata can keep you on the right side of the Law…
Consumer Protection for Bills and Billing Mediums. Basically, it’s a very “common sense” approach to eBilling …
Integrating Email and Social Media
According to a study from Nielsen, 92% of consumers around the world say that they trust word-of-mouth, as well as friend and family recommendations
Richard Branson stole my blog post!
Organizational culture might be about shared values, but it should certainly allow for, even celebrate diversity in order to thrive.
Drive traffic to your mobile apps in 3 easy steps
There is a magic highway that drives traffic to your mobile app. It’s called a Deep Link!
Mojibake, and other ways to show your customers you just don’t care…
Surely when using email as a critical marketing channel, you should be able to get the basics right? Including audience, mojibakes, language, etc.
Email: 4 Important User Experience techniques
UX is a marriage of all these aspects in such a manner that translates into positive user engagement – giving the user a positive experience with the product.
Video in email - bring your campaigns to life!
Where video in email is not compatible with the mail client, fall back media is used, such as animated gifs or static images.
76% of respondents use email as a document exchange - Harvard Business Review
The reason that certain technologies become ubiquitous & other languish in the paperless adoption chasm, the issue comes down to the network
5 Email rules you CAN break
My approach is: break the rules! See what works best for your subscriber base at this exact point in time
Your 6 step guide to cleaner email data
Putting one or more of these processes into action should effectively reduce the amount of invalid email addresses you have on file.
Lost your identity by changing your emails?
We have been busy testing some new internal systems over the past month and I realized how a small change can have a profound effect.
Changing the Subject: 4 Powerful Functions of a Subject Line
A midst all the noise of technical innovation – do take time to go back to the basics regularly and give yourself a refresher course
How email can help you with paperless billing adoption
So why in this age of convenience and online savvy are so many companies struggling to get their customers to sign up to electronic billing?
How much money do you waste on inaccurate customer data? 3 Tips to get your data right
Poor data can result in irrelevant and outdated communications which can damage your brand
Low customer effort vs customer delight - which wins loyalty?
What if there was an even more important factor influencing customer loyalty? Could ‘making it easy’ for your customer have a impact? Delight your customer
It’s all about big data, loyalty & new collection strategies in Asia
It’s all about big data, loyalty & new collection strategies in Asian utilities and finance
Email picks up the dropped basket
The average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate is 69%! What can I do to re-market?
5 Essential Steps to a Winning eBill Strategy
Quite simply, in order to get the most out of eBilling it is important that you not only rely on technology to create magic.
What is this mystery called organizational culture?
Culture exists outside of a product or value proposition, & many believe it supersedes strategy in contributing to achieving business goals.
Ensure your paperless gateway isn’t locked
I couldn’t really put my finger on it until I started signing NDAs and hearing about banks’ paperless adoption plans.
Security measures for your eDocument data
I’m taking a step back to the ‘notice board’ and addressing the complex issue of data security. Electronic document delivery and security
Your document password shouldn’t be the weak link in your secure communication chain
A short, simple secret becomes the weak link in the chain to an effective secure communication.Improve you document password security
Ensure your electronic documents are delivered securely: Encryption/cryptography
But what about security, confidentiality and non-manipulation? How do you ensure trust and compliance with your new process?
Google, Digital Mailboxes and the long tail of billing
The PR hype about Digital Mailboxes: just waiting for Google (through Gmail) to announce its intentions in this space.
Leverage the power of email to drive and maintain customer loyalty
5 reasons why email is effective in customer lifecycles communications
How to “surprise and delight” when your customers want more than just eBilling...
Payment is catching on and utilities and other billers are taking a new tack here in Asia.
Leveraging Big Data to deliver the one-to-one message?
At a retail banking conference recently, the conversation surrounding customer service was more present than I ever could have imagined.
13 Unlucky for some? 13 Tips for successful email marketing in 2013!
Get the basics of your email campaigns right. In doing so, you can be assured that your customer will have a pleasant experience with your brand… in their inbox
The 2012 Paperless Banking Challenge: Interim results
To move the paperless dial you need the right model – but even that can be negated by a bad customer journey.
Part 4 - Improve deliverability: Essential technical setup
Sending bills or marketing via email are rarely sent from the same domain/server where the ‘FROM’ and ‘reply-to’ addresses exist.