The Art of the Paperless Statement
Most utilities, banks and credit card companies today who use the internet for transactions haven't given much thought to the user experience of paperless statements, yet some of them are constantly exhorting us to sign up for it.
I find with most companies, it's far easier to get the paper statement, open it and file it in an appropriate folder than it is to sign on, navigate, in several steps, to the right place, download the file, then rename it to something meaningful.
I find with most companies, it's far easier to get the paper statement, open it and file it in an appropriate folder than it is to sign on, navigate, in several steps, to the right place, download the file, then rename it to something meaningful.
Suggested Guidelines
- Let us download the bill or statement with as few clicks and as little typing as possible.
- The best way to do this is send an email for each new statement, wherein there is a link which will download our statement. Of course, this will be interrupted by a login request. But after that, boom, download begins. Provide additional links in the email, such as one for the home page and one for a list of available statements.
- Give the downloaded statement a meaningful name. A great counter-example comes courtesy of Wells Fargo: session.cgi.pdf. Much better would be something like wellsfargo-checking-2011-07.pdf.
Advantages for Companies
More customers will want to go paperless, saving you money!
Hey, it could be a competitive advantage.
Hey, it could be a competitive advantage.
