tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12514577846121706772012-01-27T01:22:19.538-08:00Breaking news from the Electronic Billing World. Stay up to date on all things related to eBilling.Timothy Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15848564638097402892noreply@blogger.comBlogger90125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-65914652872858411242011-12-07T07:12:00.001-08:002011-12-07T07:18:49.344-08:002011-12-07T07:18:49.344-08:00

Our eMarketing team is often approached by clients for industry statistics on open and click rates in an attempt to measure email marketing campaigns. While wanting to benchmark your campaign results against an industry average is understandable, it is somewhat misplaced as no two target audiences, campaign messages or commercial relationships are the same. Open rate is influenced by many

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-57056795406904325672011-11-16T02:42:00.000-08:002011-12-06T02:45:06.702-08:002011-12-06T02:45:06.702-08:00

Working in the email messaging space means I receive more email than the average person, not just from the day to day emails at work, but also various newsletters and services that I've signed up to. As a result, I tend to expect a lot from the emails I receive - all the boxes must be ticked. Today, most of the transactional emails hitting my inbox (eg. notifications) are still devoid of

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-5452210753374250072011-11-09T07:04:00.000-08:002011-11-09T07:06:23.805-08:002011-11-09T07:06:23.805-08:00

There has been a great deal written about the decline of the Post Office, while postage costs in the UK rise to a record high. But precious little comment has been made on the impact this is having on British businesses that rely on this service. Whilst the average punter on the street remains unconcerned and unaware of the costs involved in posting a letter, businesses have seen a 10%

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-84798024874160057052011-10-26T03:34:00.000-07:002011-11-02T03:36:52.718-07:002011-11-02T03:36:52.718-07:00

For many years we have written about why PDF for email bills is the ideal process for eBilling and eInvoicing alike. The proof is in the adoption statistics - 'push' email billing solutions produce double or triple the adoption of paperless processes when compared to web portals. A recent article by renowned eInvoicing commentator Friso de Yong; 7 myths and 7 facts about PDF invoices, ended

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-14624325512702034422011-10-19T03:32:00.000-07:002011-11-02T03:33:27.552-07:002011-11-02T03:33:27.552-07:00

"Hello. Welcome. Good to meet you. I hope you enjoy your time with us." These phrases are regarded as a common courtesy in daily personal interactions, yet they are not carried over into the digital space. In a virtual world, where people are 'meeting' and engaging with brands for the first time, it has become imperative that brands 'set the stage' by initiating an email welcome campaign for

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-48696043173456805192011-10-14T01:48:00.000-07:002011-10-14T01:48:28.726-07:002011-10-14T01:48:28.726-07:00

It's not easy being a Post Office nowadays! Globally, postal services are being adversely affected by the changing communication preferences of consumers - the state of the United States Postal Service (USPS) highlights this issue very clearly. The USPS lost a staggering US$8.5 billion in 2010 – that's $25 million each day. While a portion can be blamed on excessive retirement and health

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-35061128886015417122011-09-29T00:33:00.001-07:002011-09-29T00:33:38.103-07:002011-09-29T00:33:38.103-07:00

As an email marketing and billing provider, I choose to receive most communication by email, including the majority of my monthly bills (except for those vendors that don't offer email billing – SO 'last year'). Every month, when I open an electronic invoice to see how much I have to pay and by when, I end up manually creating a reminder in my calendar, so as not to miss the payment due date

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-83020971123398373052011-09-22T00:31:00.000-07:002011-09-29T00:32:52.968-07:002011-09-29T00:32:52.968-07:00

The effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns could be related to your decision to use either a dedicated or shared Internet Protocol (IP) address.One of the key challenges of deliverability is achieving and maintaining an excellent sender reputation with ISPs and Webmail service providers. Your sender reputation is one of the deciding factors of whether to block your emails or let

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-68900688434953795942011-08-17T06:40:00.000-07:002011-08-17T06:42:42.670-07:002011-08-17T06:42:42.670-07:00

In a world full of choice, the RFP seems like the perfect process to find that Email Service Provider (ESP) to meet all your goals. Or is it? Time and time again, this process fails, not in terms of appointing a vendor, but in terms of finding the right partner to implement the best solution for an organisation. So where does it all go wrong and what's the solution? This is the first in a

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-63855622885849167872011-07-27T04:53:00.001-07:002011-07-27T04:59:06.676-07:002011-07-27T04:59:06.676-07:00

I was speaking to a group of banking people from fast-developing countries like Indonesia, India and Pakistan at a conference in Singapore last month. Their views on eBilling and eStatements were very similar - adoption rates for going paperless are still very low and they place the blame on low internet penetration. As a result, some banks are postponing eBilling implementation until there

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-19461464969816726952011-07-20T03:18:00.001-07:002011-07-20T03:18:56.735-07:002011-07-20T03:18:56.735-07:00

Earlier this month Citigroup's credit card portfolio was hacked by criminals who apparently exploited a flaw in the browser window. This enabled them to go from one account to many others, capturing names, account numbers, emails and transaction history for roughly 360,000 customer accounts. The Ponemon Institute estimates the average cost of the data breach at $214 per compromised record,

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-87847884435488919142011-06-22T03:17:00.000-07:002011-07-20T03:18:15.483-07:002011-07-20T03:18:15.483-07:00

Canada Post employees recently went on strike – after two weeks and with no end in sight, companies in Canada are using this opportunity to migrate customers to eBilling at a rapid rate. Although the driver here is actually hard cost savings, the outcome is that there will be even less paper bills and statements and hence less revenue for Canada Post, resulting in more cut-backs and

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-59559787993701460722011-06-16T03:16:00.000-07:002011-07-20T03:17:30.270-07:002011-07-20T03:17:30.270-07:00

Do you hate usernames and passwords as much as your customers do?Choosing and remembering multiple usernames and passwords for eBilling and self serve portals is a poor customer experience and incredibly expensive for billers. It is furthermore one of the most significant barriers to paper suppression.Uniquely chosen usernames and passwords are intended to make websites secure, but instead,

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-91540747679526979922011-06-10T01:58:00.000-07:002011-06-10T01:59:34.844-07:002011-06-10T01:59:34.844-07:00

In the wake of social media, instant messaging and any other alternate and efficient means of communicating - one would surmise that email must be taking a back seat. However, many of these new technologies rely heavily on email for registration and notifications relating to their service.While Facebook has 500 million active users, email makes Facebook look like a poor cousin in comparison.

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-73541327608409682802011-05-05T05:03:00.000-07:002011-05-05T05:04:23.807-07:002011-05-05T05:04:23.807-07:00

The Royal Mail has implemented another increase in postal costs in the UK. Increases between 10% and 13% were applied from 4 April 2011. I say “another” because the costs of postage seem to rise every year, generally far in excess of inflation. It stands to reason that the use of eBilling as an alternative to paper is on the rise and as more and more billers and customers move to eBilling,

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-71567820169674454742011-04-06T06:54:00.000-07:002011-04-06T06:55:08.617-07:002011-04-06T06:55:08.617-07:00

As I travel around Asia talking to companies about eBilling and looking at what eBilling solutions have already been implemented, it strikes me that the whole eBilling business is mired in misleading projections and statistics, and in many cases, apathy. Surely this is a key reason why so few people actually utilize eBilling, and why so few companies actually save money when implementing it

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-56709061373893357582011-03-31T06:47:00.000-07:002011-03-31T06:48:32.082-07:002011-03-31T06:48:32.082-07:00

Having been in email marketing for the better part of 10 years, I believe in the medium, so why then do I find myself unsubscribing from countless newsletters that offered so much value in the past?The answer: Those same companies post their newsletter articles on their Twitter feed either at the same time or worse – a few days before the newsletter is distributed. By the time that

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-57700764447446410742011-03-24T06:18:00.000-07:002011-03-24T06:19:07.323-07:002011-03-24T06:19:07.323-07:00

Have you ever wondered why customers resist signing up for eBilling and auto pay? Primarily they ask "What's in it for me?" Assuring customers that it is safe to switch to paperless billing and payments should be a pre-requisite, surely? Apparently not, as I found out this week.Do you read the small print or Terms & Conditions for every website before signing up to use their online services?

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-53476203344289194892011-03-16T06:24:00.001-07:002011-03-16T06:24:35.894-07:002011-03-16T06:24:35.894-07:00

eBilling is "green" – everyone knows this. It's a truism so obvious and self-evident that it is hardly worth mentioning. So, for eBilling to be attacked as 'greenwashing' seems disingenuous to say the least, especially coming from a lobbyist bought and paid for by the very industry suffering from eBilling's success.Recently "Two Sides" (a lobbying initiative by companies in forestry, pulp,

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-62899397603924343082011-03-09T05:33:00.000-08:002011-03-09T05:34:07.547-08:002011-03-09T05:34:07.547-08:00

I would love to be a fly on the wall when marketing departments are thrashing out plans for their marketing campaigns at the beginning of the new financial year.I am willing to take a bet that in general, direct digital communications - considered the ginger-headed step children of marketing disciplines - receive mere scraps of the budget pie, whilst the glamorous fat cat traditional and

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-44833476664336399822011-03-02T05:58:00.000-08:002011-03-02T05:59:24.813-08:002011-03-02T05:59:24.813-08:00

My first two blog posts on this subject dealt with why consolidators here in the US will never work. In today's post, I cover the comparison between eBill / eStatement consolidators and true electronic delivery solutions:There are five primary areas where email delivery of bills and statements succeeds, where consolidators have and will continue to fail. 1. Biller and consumer critical mass:

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-30858918716173184622011-02-23T06:08:00.000-08:002011-02-23T06:09:02.646-08:002011-02-23T06:09:02.646-08:00

Email marketing is constantly evolving and a focus for many companies is split testing to ensure relevance and understanding of customer behaviour. However, it's easy to forget the basics and that's when mistakes creep in.I have received numerous marketing and notification emails in the past few weeks which have the basics wrong: referring to me by my surname rather than first name (no title

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-16602884635167174872011-02-18T04:54:00.000-08:002011-02-18T04:55:34.626-08:002011-02-18T04:55:34.626-08:00

I've seen hundreds of phishing emails over the past couple years. Some brilliantly written; others that wouldn't fool the clichéd blonde in a bar.The good ones can be tricky to recognize: they seem to come from a valid service provider, are exact replicas of a real communication, and I reluctantly admit, are rather professionally done.The bad ones are just that: BAD - Spelling mistakes,

Richnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-22365079416946289672011-02-09T22:21:00.000-08:002011-02-09T22:22:39.845-08:002011-02-09T22:22:39.845-08:00

An interesting story appeared in my Google Alerts a little while ago regarding an eBilling problem in Texas. What made it interesting to me was that the company involved – a water utility – had done many good things with regards to their eBilling, but fell at the last hurdle and ended up disconnecting an innocent customer. Not good for public relations! The full story is here. In brief,

Richnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251457784612170677.post-15772809293686413582011-02-03T22:21:00.000-08:002011-02-09T22:21:47.820-08:002011-02-09T22:21:47.820-08:00

I can't think of any other consumer technology news that has been more eagerly anticipated in the US recently, than Verizon announcing that they will be introducing the iPhone in February 2011. While one analyst report estimates that 25 million Verizon iPhones could be activated in 2011, Verizon Wireless is conservatively predicting 11 million new iPhone users this year. On a global scale,

Richnoreply@blogger.com0