Posted on Tue, Feb 01, 2011
An OutputLinks Conversation with Matt Swain, Senior Consultant at InfoTrends
Andy & Julie Plata, OutputLinks’ owners, recently met with Matt Swain to discuss his newly completed study related to electronic bill presentment and payments.
InfoTrends’ New Electronic Bill Presentment & Payment Study
What made you decide to launch this Electronic Bill Presentment & Payment Study this year?
Early last year, we stepped back and reviewed the inquires that we were receiving in the transaction output market, and there was significant renewed interest in the electronic bill presentment & payment markets. InfoTrends has been tracking this space since 1997; however, we noticed that billers were becoming frustrated with the apparent adoption plateau that they had reached for electronic delivery of bills and statements.
At the same time, transaction document services providers are expanding their services offerings and exploring how to best support electronic migration for their customers. In other words, there was a clear need to conduct this study.
Who is the target audience for this study?
This study has high relevance to any company focused on the transaction output market, either print or electronic. We have had finishing companies, print hardware and software vendors, transaction document services providers, and corporate enterprises purchase this study.
How has reception to the study been thus far?
It really has been quite successful and we owe that to our long history of tracking this market, our comprehensive research and resulting forecast, and the general importance of this topic in the market today.
Can you elaborate on the comprehensive research?
Certainly. We focused this research on the United States and Canada and we wanted to gain the perspective of all parties involved in the bill presentment & payment discussion–including consumers, billers, transaction document service providers, and the vendor community. We conducted quantitative research through web surveys with 1,032 consumers and 123 billers.
Because our historical research found variation in electronic adoption by bill type, we surveyed billers across six key vertical markets–banking, financial, healthcare, insurance, telecommunications, and utility. On top of this, we also conducted interviews with 15 key vendors and service providers in this market.
How did you account for consumers who would not be able to take a web survey?
When establishing our research methodology, we made a conscious choice to focus on Internet-connected consumers. For billers, this demographic is extremely important to understand, since they have access to the Internet and could adopt (or increase use of) electronic presentment and payment methods.
Do the research results show that adoption of electronic presentment is going to grow at current rates or are you expecting accelerated growth?
Our research shows that there is no “one size fits all” answer for adoption; however, based on the projections from both consumers and billers, we’re certainly seeing growth in electronic presentment. Billers’ expectations for growth are much higher than consumer expectations, but of course billers have more to gain in suppressing print and postage costs.
There was also a noted division between older and younger respondents on the consumer side. While electronic adoption rates will continue to increase with younger customers, the older generation of customers will be a difficult group to sway. In general, they are set in their ways and resistant to change. Billers are going to have to accept this as a cost of doing business.
For those who plan to charge to receive bills and statements in print, they should be aware that over 40% of our consumer respondents said they would seek another provider before paying the fees. We provide full study subscribers with a split by demographics so they can see differences by age, geographic region, income, and other factors.
And what “aha!” did you get out of the study that you hadn’t really considered before?
I was actually surprised that the primary benefit of electronic bill and statement delivery for consumers was that it is environmentally-friendly. While that may sound like a reasonable response, I didn’t expect it to be the top perceived benefit. At the same time, billers have been aggressively marketing the environmental benefits of electronic presentment, so maybe this response is just a result of effective marketing. I should note that when we asked billers what the most effective marketing strategy was for driving electronic adoption, “convenience” rated much higher than environmental benefits.
One last question–how can companies learn more about this study?
I’d be happy to further discuss the topic with anyone who is interested. You can reach me at matt_swain@infotrends.com.
Matt, thank you so much for sharing your time and wisdom with us and our readers.
My pleasure, as always.
