Paper bills or e-bills. What do you prefer?
What does your billing company want you to receive?
We want to find out how consumers are reacting to the increasing requests to receive bills and statements on line.
Is this convenient for you? Is it better for the environment?
We’re asking these questions and others in our multi-country survey issued last week.
If you work or are planning a career in the printing, paper, or other allied industries, you may be biased in your answers, but please complete the survey and then SEND TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY. We want the views of as many people as possible.
We would greatly appreciate if you took 5 minutes to COMPLETE THE QUICK SURVEY HERE.
Thanks!
Phil Riebel
President and COO, Two Sides U.S., Inc.
It is a little simplistic to just compare the cost and environmental impacts of paper vs. email. The right channel at the right time is a better approach. Electronic billing solves many other issues and delivers other benefits not related to cost or the environment for consumers and business.
We would value the input of e-billing experts to improve our survey. Please contact me directly and we can dicuss.
It doesn’t matter if electronic billing solves many other issues. Environment is much more important than any consumer’s convenience or any business.
Ricardo – I too believe the environment is more important than consumer convenience. But just like paper production and consumption, e-billing is a reality and needs to be done in a responsible manner. Both industries can execute in a environmentally harmful manner.
I think the keywords are “responsible production and use” of any communication method. Obviously Two Sides is not against any form of electronic media as long as it is done responsibly. But we do like to remind people of the unique sustainable features of print and paper (renewability, high recycling rates, carbon storage, huge benefits of well managed forests, etc…). We also believe that company’s need to send a more accurate and balanced environmental message to promote e-billing, withour being negative towards paper. Not only is it misleading but it gets many customers upset because 8.4 million people (U.S. only) earn their livelihood in the print, paper and mail value chain.
I love paper and being a printer I am concerned that paper has been given a bad name so I am part of the group educating consumers on the goodness of paper — however, there are places to conserve and watch our consumption of paper. I think receiving digital bills or statements is an area where we as a society can decide to use less paper. But I might add there has been a problem with digital bills versus paper bills. I get many many emails and email bills can get loss in the mix of all the others! So one needs to be mindful of this and have checks in place to make sure you are not forgetting to make a payment. And as a business owner, I need a paper trail so I end up printing the bill or statement out anyhow so it is costing me more money!
I actually prefer electronic billing for most of my personal accounts, not because of environmental issues, but because it works for me. That said, I also print at least some of those statements, because paper still works for me. I don’t write many checks, so the electronic mode fits with my payment mode. I can organize or reorganize the electronic files much more easily than I can paper folders, and searching for something is far easier. Even so, I keep or print paper copies of year end statements as a reference record. After all, electronic systems fail, and when they do, what’s stored there may be completely lost. My paper copies can sustain a hit from a cup of coffee and still be readable. Moreover, I can still use the same “hardware and software” to read a paper document whether it was printed today or 20 years ago. With some modest “software” changes (mostly persistence), I can even read one printed 200 years ago. Most folks don’t have a system that can read the 3.5 floppy that was generated just 10 years ago. Paper lasts. Paper is versatile. Paper is reader friendly.