With consistent messages coming from the consumer in favour of email delivery, how do billers and financial institutions satisfy their drive for website-based self-service? Striatas Michael Wright says it is email billing that will drive paperless adoption and not e-billing
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NACHA has predicted that 2016 will be the tipping point for e-billing (see Businesses take the initiative), but this is based on the slow and steady growth of current website portal models.
In other words, 2016 will see the number of e-bills outweigh the number of paper bills, but I wouldnt call it a "tipping point" as such. There is no indication in the study to suggest the adoption of electronic bills will increase significantly beyond the current rate.
Had they taken the explosive growth in email billing into account however, a true tipping point would probably be experienced at a much earlier date.
Self-service portals fail to achieve significant adoption rates, so the results of paperless adoption initiatives continue to disappoint the e-billing industry. Achieving mass adoption of paperless processes will only occur when the process of e-billing is as easy as opening a paper document.
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By GlobalDataAsking customers to replace the convenience of receiving and opening a paper bill with the process of portal registration, plus remembering another unique username and password for each and every biller, as well as multiple consolidators, is not going to drive paperless adoption.
Industry averages for paper turn off have struggled to exceed 20%, while email delivery models boast adoption in excess of 50%.
Email is the most common application on almost every mobile device in the market today and a ubiquitous service in the consumers daily life, which makes the inbox the logical electronic equivalent to the mailbox.
According to a recent InfoTrends survey, 61% of consumers said that remembering multiple unique usernames and passwords remains a barrier to paperless adoption. 49% of consumers said that fetching their bill on a billers website was not a good alternative to the paper version.
The consumer view
In February 2011, Striata conducted a direct consumer survey in order to answer one critical question: "How would you most prefer to electronically receive your house bills and bank statements?"
This survey was targeted at economically active business people from the age of 35 to 54 with broadband internet access – the consumers who should be paperless today.
At the close of the survey, the majority of respondents chose email delivery of bills and statements.
Respondents were also encouraged to comment on their vote and we found the most common reason cited for reluctance to sign up for customer self service options, is the associated registration and login requirements. The popular choice for email delivery provides convenience and familiarity.
Consolidators are another e-billing model battling to gain momentum because billers are reluctant to hand over this vital and in some cases only touch point with their customers.
Likewise, handing over the billing relationship to banking consolidators also sees the biller losing the customer relationship. Marketing opportunities through these models are completely lost as well.
For a consolidation location to be successful, consumers would require the majority of their bills to be available immediately, which has not been the case with most consolidators on the market today and so, consumers are not actively enrolling.
In addition to this, consumers do not want another mailbox nor to have to choose and remember yet another username and password and many pieces of information on hand for each biller at that location.
With these consistent messages coming from the consumer in favour of email delivery, how do billers and financial institutions satisfy their drive for website-based self-service?
The answer is not to tie paper suppression to self-service portals or internet banking registration, but to focus on migrating customers from paper to electronic delivery by offering the delivery choices they want.
Only when billers begin to give customers what they actually want the true convenience of email delivery will the majority of them go paperless.
Michael Wright is CEO of Striata
