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Paperless e-billing is becoming more popular with customers, though a few concerns remain. It is the preferred method of paying bills for customers with Internet access, who are now less worried about security concerns as they come to realize mishandled paper documents are the greater threat, and who appreciate the convenience of ebilling. Customers also appreciate that e-billing is better for the environment. Customers using e-billing are less likely to switch to a competitor. Billers must decide whether to 'push' a bill to their customers or try and 'pull' them to their website. The best choice depends on the customer base. The push method minimizes the cost associated with have forgotten names and passwords as log in is not required. Whichever method is chosen, the e-bill should contain all the standard information found on a paper bill, and thus can still be used for upselling. E-billing is cheaper for the biller than paper bills, especially when the value added to the customer relationship is included. Plant Telecommunications, a family owned communications company, has had 15 percent of its customers opt for paperless billing, saving the company about $2 per bill, which is about 25 cents less than the usual cost per bill according to BillTrust, a billing services firm. This cost includes such things as paper and printing costs, and mail room employee wages, but excludes equipment costs and costs for customer service if a charge is disputed of fraud detected. Billers must figure out how to store and maintain customers' email addresses, which can be a challenge for companies with older legacy systems, though best practices have been developed to deal with this concern. Many billers opt to outsource their billing to firms such as EDS or Convergys, but the challenge of deciding how much web-based customer self-care they want to provide.
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