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Wednesday 22 January 2014

Using a Range of more “Active” Incentives to adopt e-billing and payment

With a planned and consistent information-led approach which stresses the many benefits of the transition, as much as 15% of a customer base may adopt your new electronic billing and payment system. This information-led approach is like to use a range of gentle encouragement approaches such as:

  1. Letters explaining the new system
  2. Short notices about particular benefits
  3. FAQ’s on a merchant website explaining the new system
  4. Pamphlets/Leaflets/Brochures on the new system
  5. White papers (on benefits such as being more “green”)
  6. Trials (try using the system but keeping getting paper bills)
  7. Offers such as planting a tree (for every 10 customers who switch to e-billing)

However, to get the majority of customers to alter old habits, greater incentives are needed and this will depend on each merchant deciding how much extra pressure to change to apply. This falls into two categories-what we call “active encouragement” and “aggressive encouragement”. Let’s look at each of these in turn.



Active encouragement

Active encouragement uses a range of methods to incent customers to switch but all of these fall short of forcing them to change or imposing new costs on them. Examples here include:

  1. Offering donations to charity (for each customer/every 5 customers who switch)
  2. Using email campaigns to use e-billing
  3. Engaging in planned text messaging campaigns to explain the benefits
  4. Educating customers over the phone (via a call-center) on a push basis
  5. Running advertisements (print, radio and even cable)
  6. Running sweepstakes or other competitions around the new e-billing system
  7. Using on-hold messaging to encourage adoption
If gentle encouragement achieves the first 15% to adopt e-billing, the above may add another 25% over a 3-6 month period (with consistent effort).

 

Aggressive encouragement

Give that the first two encouragement approaches described above may convert 40% of the customer base to the new billing system on a combined basis, the last 60% may need to be pushed even harder and this is what we call “aggressive encouragement”. Examples of this might be:

  1. Running a loyalty points scheme for prizes (in-house or third-party) for switching customers
  2. Offering coupons or discounts for products or services (in-house or external) when switching
  3. Offering third-party gift certificates for adoption
  4. Forcing customers to opt-out of electronic billing (simply by turning off paper bills for example)
  5. Offering discounts on bills viewed and paid electronically  (e.g.1%, 2% or even more off)
  6. Charging customers if they want a printed invoice
  7. Charging customers a surcharge to call in make to a call center

These more aggressive encouragement approaches need to be carefully discussed before implementation and will also depend on the new system being offered. In the case of using a service such as BillSwyft for example, customers can still print invoices and generate PDF’s, thereby making the switch to no paper rather easier to bear.

Thursday 2 January 2014

Moving Customers from the Paper-based World of Bills and Checks into the Digital age?

To encourage customer to adopt an online billing solution of any kind takes careful planning and creativity and there are several “angles” a biller can take in the general promotion of the benefits of the change to e-billing. A few of these are:

1.          The Informational Angle – simply communicating that the new system is available and is easy and quick to use and should be tried –the more you can get the pioneer and early adopter types to make the switch the better-some of these may even provide testimonials to be published on a web site to the rest of the customer base.

2.          The Green Angle – The fact that the new bill presentment and payment system can save paper (and even save water, electricity and fuel) is a powerful reason for many customers to “do their bit” and make own small contribution to the sustainability of the planet.

3.          The Benefits Angle – In the early stages, customers will not be interested long communications about features of a new system (and may even resist any proposed change). However, by focusing on the specific benefits of the new system (such as speed and convenience, or the capacity to save them time and money in an increasingly busy world) this is often more than enough to get them thinking about making the change.

4.          The Rewards Angle – Merchants can offer specific rewards and incentives (points, gifts and prizes etc.) to customers to get them to switch to an electronic billing and payment solution.   

In some cases, a merchant will want to adopt just one of these angles to get customers to start thinking about using an online bill view and payment solution, but it may also be useful to adopt more than one angle or even switch from one to another progressively over time and therefore use all four of the above options. Of course, for the bulk of customers you may need to use the rewards angle (and actively or even aggressively) to get them to take action.