Blog Post
Online Billing: A Behind the Scenes Look
Before I landed my marketing internship at Billtrust, I never thought so much about the critical role a billing process plays within business. As a 20 year old college student, my main concern has always been school. My job as a student is to get good grades; I have my whole life to worry about working and paying my bills.
Needless to say, this train of thought didn’t help when I had to start talking about something I had never done for 8 hours a day. In an effort to assist Billtrust’s customers, I have been contacting their customers and encouraging them to switch from receiving paper invoices to receiving and paying them electronically. What I had discovered after my 500th call is that there are two types of people; people who love change and people who hate change, with little in between. Every person I spoke with would either say, “Absolutely, sign me up!” Or, “nope, not interested.” The biggest skepticism of all; “sure this helps the vendor, but how does it help me?” I had never paid my own bills before, but I wanted my response to sound sincere.
I let customers know the main reasons why converting to electronic bill pay is beneficial. It helps you get your invoices and statements faster so you can bill your customers faster, it helps you stay organized and clutter free, access to your bills is more convenient, not to mention you’re saving money on postage and heling the environment! Eventually what I began to realize was that although these are all great reasons to switch to electronic delivery of your invoices, the most important reason to make the change is because online billing is without a doubt the way that the business world is turning, whether you like the change or not, it’s happening.
The good news is that almost half the people I reached by phone were willing to embrace change and make a switch! Making any kind of change to old habits can make anyone apprehensive. It takes a lot of courage to let go of the familiar, but there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful.
Christine Howley, Intern