I am the customer: Judith Donovan

“People are more likely to respond to a bill by letter”

In recent years, many consumers have made the choice to manage their energy bills online. This has been welcomed by providers, who have incentivised customers with preferential ‘digital discounts’. For the computer literate, it may seem an obvious and convenient solution, but very little has been done to measure the impact of this change on actual consumer behaviour.

The Keep Me Posted campaign worked with think-tank London Economics to measure how receiving a paper bill impacted consumer response. Our ‘Managing Money Online’ report found that people were much more likely to respond to a bill if prompted by a letter through the post rather than via email (80 per cent vs 54 per cent). Similarly, consumers were much more likely to be able to correctly assess the overall health of their account if they were contacted on paper rather than via email (75 per cent vs 48 per cent).

Our campaign is fighting to protect the consumer right to choose how you are communicated with by providers. Paper bills are important to the 10 million UK customers who do not have access to broadband and the 10 million adults without basic digital skills, not to mention millions of disabled and vulnerable people. But our research shows that even those who are digitally competent could benefit from paper bills. If customers are more aware of the health of their account and make more timely payments when using post, then that challenges the mindset that ‘going digital’ is inevitable.

Judith Donovan CBE, chair, Keep Me Posted campaign