A good e-bill or online bill is built from customer centric approach. That way you can harness all the benefits of e-billing. And that is quite like Paul Grey, the chief market strategist at Peace Software, thinks about it. He wrote an interesting article on this matter.
Based on that article we present you some top tips in creating a proper e-bill. (So he gets all the credits, the only thing we’ve done is rearranging his article and add some stuff).
Approach e-billing as just an online form of a paper process
By doing so you deliver no more than just basic e-billing and you consequently fail to realize the full potential of Internet self service to reduce customer care costs and improve customer service and loyalty. An e-bill is so much more.
In fact sticking with paper thoughts in e-billing will most probably increase customer care cost and reduce customer loyalty. And yes surely there are some customers who prefer to see the bill online as it appeared in their mailbox. But that is just a matter of time.
Start with a clean slate and don’t try to replicate the paper bill
With replicating the paper, printed bill, you replicate all its deficiencies too. And adding the deficiencies that you get because the replicated version doesn’t fit the online world.
Instead start with a clean slate and design an electronic bill that is not tied to your traditional paper billing ‘single sheet’.
Think of an e-bill facility, not just a static e-bill
Even better think of an e-billing facility “that exploits the power of the online experience, capitalizes on online usability principles and delivers the right information, at the right level of detail, for customers to interact with the utility in an optimum manner.” Including payment options.
A static electronic version of a paper bill still brings to the Internet world all the failings of the paper billing world it’s derived from:
- it cannot show the customer’s transactions since the bill date: such as interim payments or adjustments;
- there is no possibility to show the consolidation of multiple invoices for multi-site customers;
- it cannot show the latest amount owed on an account; or, show other non-bill customer relevant information, such as service orders in progress.
Embrace the power of “e”
Billing managers wrestle with this every day: how can we make the printed bill suitable for every stakeholder: the clarity versus detail conundrum.
On the one hand, you have clarity with as less clutter as possible. The ultimate in clarity is a bill that has just the right information: the amount to pay, the date it’s due, and how to pay it. The more clear a bill/invoice is the less confusion and customers contacting the call center for bill clarification.
But on the other hand billing manager have this neurotic need to present all the details to the customer, because they think every customer wants to see and understand their bill calculation (especially when it comes to utility bills). It also believed that packing all the information that a customer might need onto the bill, results in…indeed…fewer calls to the call center for explanations.
In comes the e-billing without the limitations of the paper bill format and with the vision of. This approach can easily help organisation solve both the clarity as well as the detail issues described above. And do a lot more.
Be convenient, avoid as many mouse clicks as possible
In the US typically 90% of the interactions by a customer with an e-bill are transactional. So in that case the e-billing process should be absolutely streamlined for towards the need of the US customer.
In general an e-bill that requires 10 screens and 20 mouse-clicks to get you where you want or to show you the information you want, is not considered convenient. So it is more likely to create annoyance than to encourage e-billing adoption let alone payment.
Be customer centric, focus on usability and user interaction
Be customer centric. Focus on usability for your customers not for yourself. Discover and measures the user interaction and improve.
Oh, and usability is not the same as software (just as you don’t sell a product or services by its features). Usability and user interaction takes a full team (!) that focuses on the customer. Just imagine what a weird experience that would be.
A usability-engineered e-billing facility on your website:
- provides concise information in logical sequence for viewing and paying the bill-the most pertinent information first.
- helps both new and experienced users with hyperlinks and cascading menus to drill down to the additional information they need.
- doesn’t have clutter getting in the way of customers who just want to pay their bill.
What are the benefits?
Why stick to these ‘rules’. What good does it do for you (as a supplier) to focus on your customer when it comes to e-bill or online invoices?
Here are some benefits you could think of (some of them are tied to e-billing as such):
- Faster payments
- Less questions and complaints
- More visitors to your website (cross selling, deep selling)
- Higher ROI in you on-boarding efforts
- Higher customer loyalty (=keeping them as a customer = revenue)
Do you have more tips for creating the ultimate e-bill? Let us know and we add your suggestions to the list, including credits and link-love.
Carmen Ciciriello on 
Ranko Smokvina on 
Olav Astad Kristiansen on 
Important topic and one organizations need to be in tune with if the rate of digital adoption is to increase. Today, new technologies provide advanced customer care and billing functionality for driving new business, improving cash flow, reducing service costs, and enhancing your green initiatives–all while increasing customer loyalty. We’ve posted a few webinars and white papers on the topic of intelligent e-billing over at http://www.pb.com/ccmsoftware/Resources.shtml.
Excellent ideas. One must ask this question though: how many sites would customer be willing to visit in order to gather all of these ultimate e-bills?
Let’s say I get approx. 7 bills per month. One cannot expect me to log into 7 different sites with 7 different credetials and open 7 different invoices in order to just pay my dues.
@Vesa Kotilainen,
Good one. I believe you have a real business case there if you build something. Both for B2C/G2C (e-billing) and B2B/B2G (e-invoicing).
We use Lastpass in combination with Symbaloo to make things easier for us.
The E-invoicing Platform.
At last some more thought leadership for eBills. Throw out the paper paradigm and design to bill to solve any issues that may impede payment by the recipient. eBills can provide built drill through to supporting documents; filter; search & sort and well as payment and line item query.
Vesa Kotilainen – you can certainly “fetch” bills online or just use other push based channels such as email and RSS for delivery. That way not bothering with visiting multiple sites.