Author: Archive

Faster than a speeding bullet, comic book superheroes are coming to a post office near you. Batman and Superman, Wonder Woman, Supergirl and a half dozen other superheroes will star on new postage stamps being released Thursday.

The Postal Rate Commission announced in November 2005 the approval of a 5.4% postal rate increase. The increase took effect in early 2006, and for companies that mail high volumes of bills and statements the financial impact will be significant. Some may point to electronic bill presentment as a way to sidestep these increases, but the fact is that an overwhelming majority (between 85 to 90%) of utility customers still prefer to receive their statements in the mail and pay bills with a paper check. The reason? Customers have little incentive to change their habits and often find e-billing more confusing and time consuming than necessary.

In the face of the pending postal rate increase— coupled with slow adoption of electronic bill presentment and payment—utilities may feel that they are caught between a rock and a hard place; but there is hope. Smart utilities companies will find hidden value in their paper processes by looking more deeply at the value of printed statements and more closely at the reliability of the USPS. E-billing may someday provide significant cost advantages to billers, but until customer adoption is more fully developed it is wise to look at the many advantages of issuing statements and bills via P.O.P. – plain old paper.