95% of Utility Bills Still Sent Through Mail

Utilities continue to incur high costs due to distributing 95% of their bills through the mail, according to Chartwell's survey of 94 utilities. Bills sent through the mail are more expensive than bills delivered electronically. Some utilities have seen success in decreasing the percent of customers receiving paper bills. One utility with more than 300,000 customers enrolled about 20% of its customers in paperless billing through promotions on almost all of the material produced by the utility. This utility also incentivize employees to enroll customers. Another utility company, Arizona Public Service, donated $1 to the Tree Research and Educational Endowment every time one of their customers signed up for paperless billing over a three month time span. Arizona Public Service was able to switch almost 17,000 customers from high-cost paper bills to low-cost electronic bills. While consumer marketing has been successful in decreasing paper bills mailed out, many utilities are looking to cut costs by delivering bills through secure email. In an effort to reduce the costs of distributing bills, 40% of utilities are planning to offer or are considering delivering bills through secure email.

So what do i get out of the deal? You help the environment, definitely, but unless there is something else in It for the average person, there is no reward in switching over to e-billing. If the utility company wanted to provide a discount for switching over to e-billing, i bet thy would have a huge and tremendous success and conversion rate.

Automakers must fail to survive

I know everyone has their opinion on what is to become of the automakers, and I am no exception. To be competitive, you have to provide a product that people want to buy, that people should buy. A car that is reliable, gets good gas milage, is easy to maintain, etc. That is part of the problem. There are other ways to make a car run besides gas, and it needs to be forced to happen. The way the cars run needs to change. Gas and oil will not last forever, and we need to be aware of that. Its too expensive to make a car today with the labor costs what they are. No offense to the unions, but they have to go. Isn't it better to have a job, and get some money, then none at all? That's what is going to happen soon. The automakers will eventually run out of money, and the government will stop bailing them out, and they will have to fail. The good that will come out of this is that hopefully they come back as leaner, more effeciant organizations. The days of the past are over and we need to stop rearward thinking and move forward. Salaries and benifits will be more in line with what they should be. Hopefully we will be makini cars that people will want to and can afford to buy. Fuel economy should be emphasised as well as alternative fuel options. I would love to have an electric car that got 200 miles a charge. I would settle for 100 if charging times we less then overnight. Hybrids are a good step forward. What about methane and propane fueled vehicals? Hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cells are probably the way to go. No more nasty emmisions, and if the distribution channels could be worked out, like they are for gasoline today, then the cost to fill up with hyrdogen would be better and better for the environment then gasoline. The great thing about hydrogen is that you could even make it yourself, but that is a topic for another post. If the various lobbies would just be made to understand that they are dinosaurs and have to move over for the sake of progress, and hydrogen power was made a national priortity, including building and maintaing a hydrogen distribution network, then we could lead the world in automotive fuel cell research and production, no longer have a need for oil and gas. Imagine not having a depandancy on foreign oil, let alone be able to export our production and make opec a thing of the past. Imagine.