One of the most popular use-cases of PerfTech’s in-browser messaging platform continues to be late-bill-pay reminders. Here, we take a look at how they are being used at a top-tier ISP customer for the year 2018 so far, January through August (8 months). In general, upon being tagged as delinquent, a subscriber is placed on a recipient list for the late-bill-pay campaign. The campaign consists of 3 consecutive, in-browser messages, each of which contains slightly stronger wording and headings. Message 1 is delivered for 2 days, after which Message 2 is delivered for 1 day, followed by Message 3. Upon receipt of payment at any time during the campaign, the subscriber is removed from the recipient list.

There are two perspectives by which to gauge effectiveness of the campaign: first, track how many recipients link immediately to pay from the message, and secondly, track how many fewer recipients are delivered notices from one message to the next.

TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION TO PAY

Each late-bill-pay message details the same action options: link to pay online, see nearest payment locations, phone to pay (with number displayed), or send by snail mail (with address included). The PerfTech platform can track only the first two subscriber actions. It turns out that extremely few, approximately .2%, elect to see physical pay locations. Note that all percentages represent an average percentage over the 8 months. Those who click to take immediate action to pay upon receiving the respective message are as follows:

Message 1: 4.0%
Message 2: 2.9%
Message 3: 4.8 %
TOTAL: 11.7%

REDUCTIONS IN RECIPIENTS FROM ONE LEVEL TO THE NEXT

Note that as payments are received, the number of recipients from one message level to the next decreases, although the number is always a subset of those who received the prior message. The most significant drop occurs from Message 1 to Message 2, as Message 1 is delivered for twice as long, and is the first notice. The average drop in recipients across the 8 months was measured as follows:

Drop from Message 1 to Message 2: 46.8%
Total drop from Message 1 to Message 3: 51.1%

FINAL NOTES

During the late-bill-campaign for any month, an average of 11.7% of notified subscribers link to pay immediately online. But there are other mechanisms for payment that are included in the messages, including pay in person, by phone, or by physical mail.In addition, many subscribers, once they receive an in-browser notice, likely access their account not immediately by click-through button during message display, but by browsing separately. So in addition to immediate action, the messages serve as strong reminders to take subsequent action, proven by the fact that by Message 3, an average of more than half have resolved. Unfortunately, other subsequent actions taken after Message 3 are not known to the PerfTech platform, but it can be presumed that the percentage who pays thereafter goes up significantly as well. The in-browser campaign may precede and/or accompany other efforts to collect past-due charges, but as a completely automated, online solution, is likely the most efficient and cost-effective.