Earlier on, in 2007, according to the BBC – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6429903.stm – BT had started charging £4.50/quarter for bills paid by cheque, which was claimed to be recouping the cost of processing, whilst Virgin were said to charge £5 for the service. Hence I would imagine a cost of £5 might approximate two years on.

Mick

I recently had my car stolen; police websites advise people to report it in person to the local station or ring the local station rather than encourage people to use the web or even to call a call-centre. That leads to the cost of a person standing their to write down the details rather than just accept it electronically. I had to define locations in words; but could well have pointed to the location on a google map which would have helped with geo-spatial analysis.

Even if it is fairly obvious that web is cheaper per transaction than phone which in turn is cheaper than face-to-face, I would still offer one caveat; the simplest less-interactive transactions such as yearly re-registering of my car can and do take place on the web. Its the more difficult edge cases ; (such as my stolen car) or similar that require more interaction and thus take place over the phone or face-to-face. Thus the type of transaction and complexity of the transaction may also impact the cost per transaction over different mediums.