I stumbled on two interesting Linkedin polls about the way customers like to receive their invoices. While both polls show a marked preference for receiving invoices by email, it’s also interesting to note the increase in this preference, over the course of only one year.
In 2009, about a third of customers preferred email to receive invoices. In 2010, this number almost doubled to 70%! Interestingly, the proportion of customers who preferred a paper copy did not change significantly, from 22% to 19,5%. Customers who prefer to log on to a portal or be invoiced directly in their bank environment is much lower.
|
2010 |
2009 |
|||
| 134 | 70% | 86 | 36% | |
| Hardcopy | 38 | 19.5% | 52 | 22% |
| Bank environment | 19 | 10% | 39 | 16% |
| Other | 1 | 0.5% | 62 | 26% |
| Total responses | 192 | 240 | ||
Check out the Linkedin polls:
- 2010: http://linkd.in/fEeTu5
- 2009: http://linkd.in/i31O3Y
It seems email is becoming increasingly official a communication channel. Should it be? How reliable is email, really? Regardless, the fact remains that without email, invoicing is slower more resource intensive.
What do you think?
