4 Steps to Ask Your Customers to Switch to Paperless Billing

This blog is well known for criticizing the folks at AT&T for their coverage problems for the iPhone. However, this time I’m going to write about AT&T in a better light.

Here’s the situation:

AT&T (as thousands of retailers in the U.S.) tries to convince its customers to switch to paperless billing. AT&T summarizes the benefits of paperless billing with the tagline: “Save time, money, and trees”.

Often, customers fail to make the switch to paperless billing because while it is easy to save how paperless billing saves tree, they cannot see exactly how this saves both time and money.

On November 18, 2010 I received an email from AT&T that effectively shows how customers can save both time and money with paperless billing in 3 simple steps.

Step 1: Mention how much your customer will save on the email subject.

This is the most critical step. AT&T’s email was titled:  “Get $10 as our way of saying thanks”.

A $10 AT&T Reward Visa Prepaid Card? Yes, I’ll take that, thank you.

Keep the email short and sweet. You can follow the 4 Tips for a Successful Email Newsletter.

Step 2: Make the process a 1-click process.

Yes.

You read that correctly.

1 and only 1 step.

Yes, it might be a pain. Yes, it might take a lot of your time. But guess what?

You’ll be happy with all the money that you will save in printing and shipping costs of paper bills.

So, just do it: keep the process at one step.

Step 3:  Make sure to notify your customer that everything is done and they need no further action.

Step 4: Keep your promise and deliver the money/reward/incentive.

Dear AT&T, I switched to paperless billing on November 18, 2010. The clock is ticking.

This is a critical part. Nobody likes a lier. Keep your promise.

Conclusion

Show your customers explicitly in 3 steps how they can save both time and money by switching to paperless billing. Use an email subject that tells them how much money they will save, make the switch process a 1-click process, provide an instant message that lets them that no further action is needed, and deliver the reward as soon as possible.