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.