Recent research commissioned by American power utility Con Edison has led to the business deciding to invest significant resources into persuading more customers to convert to electronic billing (“e-Billing”) as opposed to traditional paper-based bills which are sent by post. One of the major factors in the decision to pursue e-Billing so vigorously was the discovery that customers receiving these bills were 22% more likely to pay on time.

Researchers were also surprised to find that customers sent e-Bills were 64% less likely to query their bills via the Con Edison call centres than those receiving theirs through the post. Through these two headline findings, Con Edison have immediately found two ways of reducing their costs without compromising the customer experience.

Commenting on the report’s findings, systems specialist for electronic billing at Con Edison, George Roach said, “We invest significant resources in driving e-Bill adoption because we believe it improves the overall customer relationship. This study validates our comprehensive focus on e-Bill marketing, education and service enhancements.”

Companies long ago realised that switching to electronic billing was a prudent measure which would result in savings through reduced printing and postage costs as well as a drop in the level of manual intervention required by staff. These latest findings suggest that many customers may even prefer to receive bills electronically for their own convenience. Provision of online payment systems were also found to increase the speed with which customers settled their accounts and are of equal importance to Con Edison’s future efforts.

Although certain customer demographics still prefer to receive paper bills, companies would do well to learn from Con Edison’s findings and step up their own e-Billing efforts. Outsourced platforms such as Celtrino’s Smart Admin provide the functionality required to present bills to customers as well as other businesses from one central, managed platform. To find out more about how your business could benefit from the implementation of outsourced e-Billing, please visit www.celtrino.ie