In recessionary times good corporate-citizenship might easily be given a back seat.
However Genesis Energy has found a way to keep the accountant happy while pursuing improvements in environmental sustainability.
Genesis Energy has offered an email billing option to its customers for several years. But before promoting it more broadly the company wanted to make some enhancements. First, it wanted customers to be rewarded for choosing online billing through the ‘brownie points’ loyalty programme; second, it wanted the entire system to be managed by VPost, the email delivery service developed by Datamail.
“The move to reward customers for what they do as well as what they spend has been an enormous success for us”, says Genesis Energy’s sales and marketing manager, Annabelle Fowler. Genesis Energy customers have voted with their mouses. “The number of customers receiving their bill via email has increased by 630 percent in the nine months to June 2009 and is projected to triple again in the six months to December 2009.”
Not only is Genesis Energy able to offer a more sustainable electronic option but it’s also faster and cheaper. Clive Brumby, Datamail’s product manager, email communications, reckons Genesis Energy stands to save between 25 and 60 percent of its mailing costs or about $5 to $8 per customer annually. And with 600,000 customers, the potential savings for Genesis Energy are substantial.
Clearly, online billing is a good idea. So why have many businesses been slow to implement this technology? The answer, according to Brumby, is that without the assurance of delivery, many businesses have delayed developing an online alternative. “Most mass emails end up in the spam box. But VPost ensures all emails are correctly configured and meet all industry criteria. Datamail’s relationships with New Zealand’s leading ISPs ensures the reputation of VPost servers is maintained. As a result, VPost consistently provides delivery rates of between 95 and 99 percent”.
As more and more Datamail customers use VPost, the service improves. “Development of VPost is dynamic and continuous. What is learned from one client’s situation is automatically applied to all our others as well,” says Brumby.
And, like most clients, Genesis Energy includes dynamic content in VPost emails—enabling it to target customers with specific cross-sell or upgrade offers, resulting in further significant savings over print-based direct marketing solutions. The future with Datamail appears certain to be fiscally positive—and greener.
For more information contact Sam Lasseter-Moore on 09 271 8196