Innovation Inside - Email on the Edge

Marketers of eBilling companies have done a great job of conveying the value proposition of their solutions to billers, which explains the high implementation rates of such solutions by billers (e.g. I don't know a single biller who doesn't offer eBills).

At the same time, marketers of biller companies haven't done a great job of conveying the value proposition of eBills to consumers (Sorry, 'saving trees' doesn't cut it - not just for me but for a majority of consumers according to a Forrester report), which explains their relatively low adoption rates by consumers (e.g. Even as I prefer to pay bills electronically, I insist on printed bills).

Marketers from both camps have chosen to ignore the reality of the world in which consumers live - a world in which they must often produce printed bills for KYC because the regulator insists upon it, will suffer stoppage of service because the email delivering their eBill bounced and the biller never bothered to resend it, need to encounter the friction of remembering yet another password or shared secret to open the eBill, and so on. Which explains both low adoption rate and high double dipping rate.

IMO, automatic enrolment into eBilling is a bad idea. Thankfully, not a single one of my billers has attempted it - in trying to achieve paper turnoff, I'm sure they don't want to risk consumers turning the service provider itself off! To me, the solution is straight-forward: Think of the consumers' everyday pain areas, package eBilling in such a way that it alleviates these pain areas, thereby providing a compelling reason for them to adopt it. While saving trees definitely has a place somewhere at the middle or top of Maslow's pyramid of hierarchical needs and wants, IMHO it doesn't qualify as a pain area for the average consumer.

Hi Ketharaman,

Thanks for taking the time to provide insight. In terms of customer preferences, there will always be folks who want their paper, for varying reasons.

The challenge is designing consent strategies that leverage what behavorial economist – and Nobel laureate – Danny Kahnemann calls, “the nudge effect” in the already cited Charlie Rose interview.

In a nutshell: if you do not make the default option include the attribute “stop receiving paper”, the vast majority of people will not proactively request for it to be “turned off.”

Happy paperless customers want to receive their documents electronically; it is in alignment with the way they think, live, store and manipulate information. They think interactive graphs are cool, and are pleased to download their data and sort out their business expenses for a quick cut and paste into an expense report. Some, like me, are genuinely happy to reduce our personal carbon impact, and do not begrudge our supplier for pocketing the savings. Because it is better for the environment, full stop.

As the Gen Y and Digital Natives represent more of the demographic pie, paperless acceptance and appreciation will grow.

 For more on the power of default, see this highly entertaining and illuminating TedTalk where noted behavioral economist Dan Ariely provides a detailed explanation of the organ donation study referenced by Kahnemann: “Are we in control of our own decisions?”

It is very important to obtain customer approval (ideally through an easy, 1-click process that aligns with well-known aspects of behavioral psychology a la an opt-out approach...

So, nothing against the Paper People. The real opportunity lies in making it easy for the Virtual People to opt in - by opting out. And then delivering an exceptional, improved customer experience, from day 1, adding more value over time with personalized communication that is highly relevant and appreciated. The opportunties for mututal value-add (supplier/subscriber) are immense; consistently relevant personalized communication offers the supplier the chance to grow into a "trusted advisor" role.

There will always be 3 'P's: Paper, Pull and Push

What most billers are missing today is the Push.

Paper has been the default for many years. Changing this default to Pull (come back to my website and fetch) is jut not a viable option.

However Striata customers are having great success in changing the default to Push - so that all new customers are email customers automatically and they have to specifically ask for paper if needed.

Over time this seems to be the most effective adoption strategy there is.

When a certain biller followed exactly this practice with me to boost its eBill adoption, I was too lazy to ask it for a printed bill. This is probably what the biller expected when it implemented this practice. Since I need the bill in paper form for my downstream processes, I take a print out myself. I got ticked off with this biller for taking my preference for granted. Whenever I've needed a similar product in future, I've ensured to buy it only from this biller's competitors (none of whom forces eBills). Whenever anyone has asked me for a recommendation for a vendor for this product category, I've never recommended this biller. My behavior may not be representative but, at least with me, the biller lost the war for revenues and customer advocacy even as it might have won the battle for eBill adoption. It's the biller's choice how it wants to run its business but it's burying its head in the sands if it doesn't recognize that its actions can have unintended consequences.

I agree, K - if you need the paper in your downstream process, you probably would not opt-in to a paperless process.