A large-scale recent survey by the international ecommerce/payments research firm Forrester reports that over 70% of consumers are prepared to replace their paper bills with an on-line solution. However, customers will not take the initiative to do this and instead expect merchants to guide them on the process and show them how this will benefit them. If they do this well, the prize is that the merchant may even be able to turn off paper invoices or statements completely (and save a significant amount of money in doing so-often as much as 2-3% of revenue can be the result). So how does any merchant set about influencing their customers to adopt digital billing? Let’s look at the 5 main actions that seem to have the greatest impact:
1. Strongly market the message
When a good digital solution (such as www.Payswyft.com for instance) has been added to existing more traditional payment channels (a process which typically takes only a few hours to do) the next step is to tell customers that they can view their bills on-line and that they should go to the relevant web site to see how simple this can be for them. However, telling customers once will not be enough. Customer need to be given the message multiple times and in a variety of ways. This could include sending out a “prompting” notice on physical invoices, sending an email, a special e-newsletter, a flyer etc. It could even include putting a special message on your merchant web site or describing the new digital billing system verbally when customers are on hold when calling in by phone. With a variety of communication channels and frequent messages, customers will start to try out what you have to offer.
2. Make it easy and user-friendly
Any digital billing solution need to be easy to use and avoid confusing a customer. This usually means that the process of finding the site, logging in (or being able to pay instantly), viewing a bill and paying needs to be simple in design. It also requires the steps involved to be user-friendly (involving clear screen pages, minimum fields to fill in and as few clicks between screens as possible). The more customers come to realise that the experience is relatively straight-forward, the more comfortable they become.
3. Stress the convenience and time saving benefits
Although it may seem obvious, the convenience of using a digital billing solution needs particular emphasis. This means communicating particular benefits like it being a free and safe/secure service or one which can be done in the convenience of the home, for example. In addition, potential time and hassle avoided can be stressed by pointing out that digital bills can be dealt with quickly and the records saved in the system for later tracking or reference as needed. In a well-designed digital billing system the benefits of email/SMS alerts or reminders can also be very attractive to many customers as can the availability of many different kinds of payment options.
4. Emphasise “green” benefits.
Almost all consumers now appreciate the benefits of being more environmentally friendly, and digital billing is a great way to be “greener” (saving not only paper bills and envelopes but the added carbon-footprint of having to physically deliver them and dispose of the paper ultimately in landfill). This will only happen when the customer agrees to turn off paper billing completely but they will be happy to do this once they gain confidence in the process and start to experience the benefits described above.
5. Offer incentives.
In the early stages, your “pioneer” and “early adopter” customers may have experimented with digital billing and even adopted it quite happily. However, this may be only 10-15% of your customer population and you therefore now need to get the wider majority to try it. Incentives are the best way to make this happen and this can take a range of forms. These can include incentives such as money off a bill, particularly designed or special merchandise or offering spendable credits/points, for example. However, don’t forget, it can also include disincentives such as proposing a date after which consumers will need to pay extra for a paper bill to be sent in the post.
Summary
Electronic or digital billing can represent a cheaper, greener and more convenient way to handle bills for consumers and create significant cost-reduction and administrative benefits (time and resources) for merchants-a true “win/win” situation. However, getting as many consumers as possible to transition to e-bills needs careful planning and as many of the above actions to be adopted as possible in order to get consumers to become aware of the possibilities, pilot the approach and finally adopt the process.
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