The main difference I hear regarding statements in Australia from the States is that companies won’t and in many cases can’t just turn off the paper bill. The issue of can’t deals with US regulations.

The won’t portion, I believe, is they fear the backlash. The approach I have seen in the US, with the companies I do business with, is to appeal to my “green side”, unfortunately for them these are the same institutions that put it to me during the banking and mortgage crisis, so I am not buying in.

If they would or could come back and say online bills are free and printed bills are $4-5.00, then it would become an economic decision, which is not the case yet in the U.S.

A far as wanting promotional materials when I open the bill. If it is relevant and of benefit to me I would welcome it. (and even look forward to it if they established a record of making me some good offers)

What ticks me off when I open a bill …. interest rates, balances and irrelevant promotions. Love Australia, need to get back there.

I can’t speak for the rest of world, but in Australia, there’s a big migration to paperless billing. For example, Telco giants Vodafone and Optus have already switched to paperless billing. Paper bills are still available, providing you are willing to pay the $2 fee (Vodafone) or $2.20 (Optus). Overall, essential mail volumes (e.g. bills, invoices, statements) are on the decline over here.

Furthermore, I’m not convinced that a bill is the best medium for marketing. Consumers just don’t get excited when opening bills, in fact, quite the opposite. Are people really in the mood/mindset to respond to a call-to-action on a bill and to spend even more money? I really don’t think so.

People continue to pay online and receive a statement in the mail. During our 9 city XDU On the Road tour, the largest % of attendees paid online and still received a printed statement.

When I asked them why, most indicated they wanted the printed copy for their records and did not have confidence in being able to easily get copies on line.

For the paper merchants, do not despair, until the banks pass along the cost savings of not sending me a bill, I will continue to receive a statement.

Another revelation in our 9 city tour revolved around a discussion in “what it would take for people to give up their statements?”

Funny, no mention of accessibility to past bills but was almost an angry, “what is in it for me” attitude.

Moving the discussion along I mentioned “helping the environment” and reducing the bank costs. Not much support for reducing the banks costs (unless they were a bank) and skepticism about helping the environment.

Most people felt the “helping the environment approach” by the bank was their emotional pathway to reducing costs. Think there may be a lack of trust. (LOL)

Note to bank: Maybe if you planted a tree or came up with a list of causes that would would get part of the money they save.

Interesting times. Where is that paperless society that we talked about 20-30 years ago. Still in it’s gestation period I guess.

But is this what the customer really wants? Figures on acceptance rates for online invoicing varies. Certainly we all use the net for paying our bills, but how do they arrive? How are they ‘delivered’ to us? In my view it could, and should have stayed with mailhouses and become a simple format/delivery issue, not an IT problem.

i.e. With mailshop tools like Planetpress and even cheap office software like PDF-explode each able to send out transpromo style invoices and statements, but as personalised pdf attachments to individual email addresses. It’s cheap and easy to do compared with complex online invoice presentation. Yes, we know there is always some ongoing technical work to ensure high delivery rates with email. But Print and mailshop owners have to accept that they may need to offer the market two options. Electronic and hard copy invoices, driven from the one datastream.

The losers here I guess are the paper merchants although maybe not, since most people immediately printout their pdf statements at home. Certainly production printing suppliers will take a hit, as will the Post Office.

Interesting times….

I certainly buy into your “gestation period” theory. Over the years the hot technology and applications have taken time.

What I am starting to wonder however is will some of these technologies and applications “skip a generation” due to advances in technology and changes in how people prefer to receive information.

A little on the fringe but ….

Case in point, I read an article the other day regarding print on demand book systems. If I assume the evolution of technology will magazines, newspapers, text books and paperbacks via Kindle or iPad be an acceptable or prefered media. Hardcover maybe the exception. (But will the next generation care about hardcover/)

Making the same assumption, as online statements evolve and the same technology noted above evolves, will it be Transpromo? Certainly, not as we know it.

One of the chief challenges with transpromo is that companies that may want to adopt transpromo as a marketing strategy frequently run into internal hurdles when it comes to who is going to pay for it. The impetus behind transpromo often comes from marketing, while the actual implementation is the responsibility of IT operations. Even when the ROI is favorable, operations doesn’t want to pay for it. It is astonishing how many companies can’t get past the “silos” of departmental budgeting.

In today’s economic climate, it’s even more challenging than it was a few years ago. As the idea becomes more mainstream and accepted, and the costs of production come down further, I think we will see steady, mostly unspectacular growth in transpromo.

The delay is due not just to the need to bring down costs, get out the bugs and have a decent ROI, but also general reluctance by business to implement and market effectively. It’s been the same whether web2print (first in 1995), ctp (1990), colour transpromo (1996), full colour VDP (1995), it’s always the same. In this case having first viewed full colour transpromo at xplor whilst working for Xerox back in 1996, my base formula remains true. The bigger question is, is this inevitable delay in introducing new tools, services and workflows, cause for celebration or concern?

Because transpromo, as a concept has been around for a few years, I was very surprised to read in a January 2010 InfoTrends transpromo emerging strategies survey that of 521 In-Plant and Print-For-Pay respondents, 45.3% of respondents were familiar with transpromo but (only) 13.4% of respondents are currently producing TransPromo applications.

The good news from that study is that another 18.8% are considering, or plan to produce transpromo applications in the next 12 months. This bodes well for the economic recovery because most of these should need to invest in new software, services, training and/or equipment to make this happen. A new MVTO LinkedIn group has been formed to discuss and provide access to industry-wide experts from Oce, Kodak, Xplor, RISO, GMC, InfoTrends and many more organizations and companies. This compliments business bytes on a new MVTO Movement site at http://www.outputlinks.com/mvto .