While electronic delivery of statements for financial institutions hasn't caught on as well as was initially expected, I, for one, am ready to stop receiving snail mail, altogether. In fact, if I had to choose, I'd give up my snail mailbox long before I'd give up e-mail.
One of the problems with electronic billing or electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) has been the name and the marketing. Who came up with that acronym (I just report them)? Even if a company wanted to do research on electronic billing, results would be fruitless unless the researcher knew the obscure acronym. Of course, my readers know the acronym, but they're in the top fraction of a percent of e-business knowledge consumers.
E is where it's at, and it's high time that someone has dropped the EBPP acronym in favor of the simpler and more attractive eBilling.
I am ready for eBilling! However, I'm only the customer. EBilling has to make itself useful and relevant to businesses that bill other businesses and consumers. Zona Research has been doing its own research on eBilling and has published Buy Now, Pay Now: Internet-enabled Billing Comes of Age (March 2001). The report states that businesses that use it have high hopes that it will save them time and money, while increasing customer service and control over payments.
Here is a sample of what they found:
How important is increased ease of Online Administration?
Extremely important: 34%
Somewhat important: 29%
How important is increased customer service and awareness?
Extremely important: 45%
Somewhat important: 23%
How important is decreased fulfillment turnaround times?
Extremely important: 33%
Somewhat important: 25%
How important is control of timing and amount of payments?
Extremely important: 36%
Somewhat important: 28%
If these things are important to your business, then eBilling is something you might want to investigate.
Zona Research also listed some of the most important characteristics companies should look for in eBilling. If you're in the eBilling business or if you're thinking of implementing eBilling for your business, then the findings of Zona Research on the topic of eBilling expectations will be interesting reading.
Alexis D. Gutzman is an E-commerce Technology Author and Consultant and author of The HTML 4 Bible, FrontPage 2000 Answers!, and ColdFusion 4 for Dummies. Her newest book, The E-commerce Arsenal: 12 Technologies You Need to Prevail in the Digital Arena is now available. She can be reached at agutzman@internet.com
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