Simplified Billing Statements: Going Beyond the Basics to Encourage Customer Loyalty
Irene Etzkorn
11/12/1997
With the rapid proliferation of technology and resulting changes in people's lives, the need for simplicity has never been greater. Complexity robs people of time. In the marketplace, simplicity in billing is critical for telecom companies that wish to reach busy consumers with effective marketing messages. Some ideas on how to simplify billing, such as sending good news, using appealing surveys, getting ready for the Internet and personalizing your approach, are discussed in this article.
Providing simplified telecommunications billing is becoming more difficult as companies offer more and more services to customers. Yet, many providers are realizing that clear, consolidated billing not only can improve communications with customers, but also create valuable branding opportunities and encourage customer loyalty.
Simplified, clear billing motivates consumers to purchase services. A recent survey of 1,000 telecommunications consumers found that 69% want a single bill for local, long distance, wireless, cable, satellite television and Internet service. The survey, conducted by Price Waterhouse Entertainment, EMC Group, and Kenan Systems Corp., also found that customers with Internet or cellular service cited an "easily understood bill" as their chief concern in selecting a provider.
The customer who is likely to use wireless services, second telephone lines, Internet service and fax machines is also someone who wants value-added information, not just lines of data. Such a customer wants his or her telecommunications provider to analyze patterns of use and make recommendations on the most suitable, cost-effective mix of plans and services.
Clearly, for providers there is a competitive advantage to be gained from designing statements to support sales and marketing efforts and effectively communicate messages to customers. Well-designed statements that support business strategies are essential for all service providers who wish to compete effectively in a busy marketplace. And more companies are taking the steps necessary to create comprehensive statements that strengthen customer relationships and offer incentives to their best customers.
Simple Steps to Simplify Billing
But although many companies claim to have consolidated billing in place, this is not always the case. All too often, people at companies who think they are providing consolidated billing are simply patching together services without giving a cohesive look or feel to the overall package. A statement detailing products and services can seem more like a collage than a mosaic.
For those who have not yet begun to simplify billing, there are some basic steps to get up to speed, including the following easy tips:
• Use the full graphic capabilities of printers. Load them with corporate typefaces, and develop a common paper stock or stocks.
• Clean up any terminology and free statements of all jargon when writing a statement.
• Include a Web site address on bills.
• Use the design of the envelope-a simple thing, often overlooked-as an opportunity to communicate a message to the customer.
These simple steps will help achieve the desired effect of clarifying a statement. But to encourage and maintain customer loyalty, companies need to move beyond just the basics of simplified statements. Providers need to look at statements as a targeted, highly personalized form of marketing-a form of direct mail that can be more powerful than traditional direct mail. The goal is to encourage a sense of loyalty among customers by establishing an emotional or psychological tie between customer and provider. Simply providing satisfaction is not enough: Customers should feel a bond with a provider, service or product.
How can consolidating your billing engender a sense of loyalty? Providers can use documents to create a dialogue with customers, create opportunities for response and thus solidify a relationship. Clear, simplified billing also provides a forum for highly customized messaging that tells customers a provider knows something about them, and cares about the services and products they buy.
The following are some ways service providers can move beyond the basics to create a dialogue with customers that will lead to a personalized relationship with customers.
Send Good News
Take advantage of good news occasions to send statements to customers. This could include sending news about money saved or earned in a bank account or certificates of deposit coming to maturity. Too often, service providers send statements only when they are required by law to do so, and not when the customer might actually enjoy hearing from them. Statements should be sent according to what customers might want to know, not solely on the basis of what is required by law. Good news messages typically fall into one of three categories: success, strategy and service messages.
Success. Success messages may celebrate goals reached, reward points earned, anniversaries or financial benefit. The message should demonstrate that the provider knows something about his or her buying or usage habits, and also reinforce a caring attitude. For example:
Congratulations! You've earned 5,000 bonus points to date. Cash them in for 5 free hours of long distance or free installation of a second phone line. Or, save them to earn even bigger rewards when you reach 10,000 or 15,000 points.
Strategy. Another message, a strategy message, gives tips to help save money, provide educational information, or explain or complement usage data; in other words, adding value to the basic information being communicated to the customer. This message should advise the customer about strategic goals and reinforce the positioning of the provider as an expert or authority in such planning. A strategy message could read like this:
You can save even more next month by subscribing to Americom's weekend long distance plan. This month you could have saved $12.73. See your long distance charges for details on where you can trim costs, and call us at 555-1234 to start saving right away.
Service. Service messages go beyond giving just basic information to complement or explain service being provided to the customer. Such a message supports customer service, addresses practical account issues, and communicates legally required information such as disclosure. For example:
Your bill includes the credit customer service gave you on January 12 for the misdialed call.
Good news and warning messages are a highly visible way to provide customized, value-added information to the customer and accomplish the objective of encouraging feelings of loyalty toward a provider.
Use Appealing Surveys
Include a survey as part of a statement to generate profiles of customers. Such profiles, obtained either by a full survey or by simply posing one or two questions to customers, can yield information that a provider can then use to market services and products. A question on a statement about online use in a household, including who uses the family computer, at what times, and for how long, could lead to an offer of an ISDN line, if a provider knows that one or more lines are being used by a household. When customers respond to questions that ask for personal information, it also strengthens the bond between customer and provider, and furthers a sense of loyalty toward a provider.
It is important that customers are aware they will be given a payback for personal information. In gathering data on customers through statements and bills, providers should demonstrate that they can give the customer something in return for offering information about their spending or investing habits. This is critical not only for encouraging responses, but also for generating good feelings toward a provider.
Get Ready for the Internet
Design documents so they can easily be translated to an online environment. All companies should be prepared to offer statements online, whether or not they are doing it now. The content of a bill itself can be structured so that it easily moves to the online world-including short, logical chunks of information with meaningful headings, which lend themselves to online searches and are better displayed on computer screens. For an effective online statement, more information should be organized in row entries rather than in columns. Finally, the writing style in a statement to be used online should be markedly different from that found in traditional print documents: Language should be crisper and more colloquial and promotional.
Personalize Your Approach
By doing some homework, telecom providers can also gather information that tells customers they know something about them, and build a statement that incorporates this message in a simplified format.
Frequent-flyer statements, for example, can include miles flown to date and show how a customer ranks among the airline's top frequent flyers. Analyzing the customer's pattern of use yields information that will be helpful to customers, while simultaneously telling them that the airline knows something about them.
At some banks and financial institutions, statements summarize the customer's history and spell out why the statement will help the customer earn more, save more and continue to make smart investment decisions. The statement tells the customer how much she has earned, why she has saved money using the bank's services, and how to enhance earnings using different services and accounts. Any other services that might be of assistance to the customer are clearly outlined, and a single contact number-which is what customers usually prefer-is made available.
Finally, a review of the customer's accounts, with clarification of bonus rates, savings and discounts wraps up the statement.
Reaching busy consumers by communicating directly with them is critical in the busy marketplace of products and services. A well-designed statement can and should be used as a powerful tool to help telecom providers achieve their marketing objectives.
Irene Etzkorn is executive vice president of Siegel & Gale Inc.
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