How to Increase Electronic Presentment Adoption

eStatements go by many names — paperless statements, eBills, and eInvoices, just to name a few. But no matter what you call them, they have two important advantages over traditional paper statements — they’re friendlier to the environment and they cost one and a half times less. Still, consumers are reluctant to make the switch. After all, they get their paper statements every month by mail and they’re ok with that. If they wanted to switch to eStatements, that would take a little extra effort on their part. At the very least, they’d have to log into their account and sign up. It may seem like a small thing, but it’s a barrier to adoption nonetheless.

So how do you get over this e-adoption hump and get your customers to sign up for electronic presentment?  Here are few suggestions:

Do your customers know that eStatements are an option? Maybe it’s time to generate some awareness.  Include paperless promotions in your welcome campaign for new customers. Advertise eStatements on your website and on every paper statement you send.

What will you do to increase adoption? Plant a tree in your customer’s name through the Arbor foundation? Give them $25 off their bill? Try a few different incentives and see what resonates the most.

Don’t just make it easy for your customers to sign up, make it easy for them to retrieve their statements at any time, on any device. Even better: give them access to statements from a number of years, eliminating the need for paper.

Instead of making paper statements the default option for new customers, go with eStatements instead. Or send them both and see what option they end up keeping.

Once you know your customer’s status when it comes to eStatements, you can target them with personalized messaging and get them to sign up for the services they don’t have yet, whether that’s paperless statements, e-pay, etc.