Does the design and content of a customer statement impacts when and how they pay them? It certainly can, either in a positive or negative way. Clearly communicating key information and the ability to personalize messaging affect how people view and consume what’s in their statements.
Consumer bill payment trends are likely something you track, considering lots of factors and strategies. One you may have yet to capitalize on fully is the customer statement layout and design.
Making subtle or bigger changes could cause payment remittance to occur faster, reduce delinquent accounts, and boost your cash flow.
So, how can you enhance customer statements? Let’s look at some opportunities.
Color and Layouts Should Highlight the Most Critical Information
Ultimately, you need customers to identify what they owe instantly and when. It seems simple enough, but this is often difficult when statements are only in black and white or don’t use hierarchy in headlines. Statements with no lines or boxes to differentiate content can also be confusing.
To resolve these issues, you’ll want to:
- Take advantage of full color and use the hues that align with your brand image.
- Create a layout that’s easy to read for any consumer, carefully using headlines, boxes, and other design features.
- Use larger or bolded font to emphasize the key information around what’s due and when.
Personalization Is Easy with Dynamic Printing
Are there specific messages you need for customers to receive about payments? It could be that the rate or payment day is changing. You may also want to encourage them to pay bills online versus sending in paper checks.
Communicating these through inserts may be ineffective, as they will likely end up in the recycling bin. Putting them directly in the customer statement works better. So, how does this work?
We use the White Paper Factory (WPF) framework, which enables custom messaging on each individual statement. It eliminates the need for inserts, marrying fully digitally composed files with in-line print production. Applying the WPF also reduces waste and lets you upsell and cross-sell, highlighting other products or promotions.
It’s an excellent way to get customers to pay attention and change their bill-paying behavior. For example, you could include unique QR codes that recipients would scan to pay their statement without the need to log into your system.
Charts and Data Visualization Can Answer Bill Pay Questions
Your customer service team probably fields many questions from customers about their statements. It could be changes to their account, an increase in a monthly flat rate, or a considerable year-over-year cost difference.
By including charts that map out these data points, they may find the answers directly from the customer statement. For example, utilities often show usage in charts so that customers will understand why they have a higher invoice than they did a year ago. If it’s visually captured, they’ll realize why their electricity bill is so much higher.
What Makes A Customer Statement Design Effective?
Every company’s statements are unique, but there are some fundamental letter design best practices that apply universally, including:
- Keep it simple: Clean layouts and lots of white space make it easy for anyone to view statements.
- Maintain brand consistency: Your statements should reflect your logo, colors, and font. Otherwise, it may not look credible.
- Use color: Black and white customer statements don’t help engagement or highlight what’s important.
- Adopt a method for dynamic printing: You should be able to personalize every statement to drive payment behaviors.
- Design for legibility first: Fonts that are too small or statements that have no lines to break anything up will be hard to decipher for anyone, especially those with vision impairments.
Achieve A Modern Customer Statement That Yields Better Payment Behavior
No matter your industry or concerns about limitations, our experts can help you with document design services. We follow best practices, enable customized messaging, and provide full color statements.
Our experts know what works best in a customer statement with visually appealing documents that can streamline bill payments.
Learn more about our design services and why companies trust us with these critical communications.
