VanillaPlus

The profitable side of dealing with 'bill shock'

One in six mobile phone users have experienced bill shock, according to the US Federal Communications Commission, and 23% of those people saw unexpected charges totalling over $100. For now, the FCC is letting the industry act to prevent 'bill shock'. If communication service providers (CSPs) are to avoid tougher FCC and EU regulations in future they must ensure that within two years consumers will be alerted before and after they incur 'overages' for voice, data, and texts, and prior to charging for international roaming. Here, we talk to the experts, not just about complying with these regulations, but the benefits to CSPs' bottom lines of cutting call centre costs, billing disputes, write-offs, and customer churn.

Spring clean your billing and customer care activities to curb costs and make the bill work harder

In the current economic climate, profit is not just driven by rising revenues. Improved profit margins are often the result of re-examining regular activities to see if they can be managed more efficiently. Work done now to enhance customer retention and cut OpEx costs could pay dividends (literally) for years to come. Communication service providers need to review all of their billing and customer care activities to curb costs, make the bill work harder, and ultimately to delight the consumer. Are there any areas that have been overlooked in your network?

Billing for content - what's the big attraction?

Service providers have sought to place themselves at the heart of the content and apps value chain but many such propositions generate little or no revenue so billing systems must be ultra efficient, accurate to the extreme and fully-automated if service providers are to see any return.Which areas are fertile and must operators participate in unattractive markets in order to benefit from the most profitable ones?

What's your policy - protect or promote?

Policy control can be seen either as a carrot to entice greater, monetised use of networks and services, or as a stick to dissuade and ultimately disconnect unprofitable users hogging capacity. Can service providers move in both directions simultaneously or should they focus either on protection orpromotion.

Can hybrid billing be the best option or is it just a flawed compromise?

The debate used to be all about migrating pre-paid users to post-paid contracts but now prepaid users demand the same devices and services as post-paid users and, significantly, they’re prepared to pay. Pre-paid user willingness to purchase additional services such as bandwidth boosters, specific apps and content means they now resemble a post-paid user. Equally, post-paid users are increasingly purchasing components of their packages onflat rates so the traditional demarcation lines have blurred. Hybrid billing providers claim they provide the means to bridge the gap, are they telling the truth?

Device subsidy thanks a bundle

Depending on the markets they operate in, service providers face the burden of providing their users with ever more fully-featured and therefore costly devices. Simultaneously they are required to come up with increasingly complex and inter-linked bundled propositions. How can they keep track of the value they are deriving from device subsidy and cross-promotedbundles? Is there a real risk they’re flying blind through necessity rather than choice?

Extracting profit from mobile advertising

With the smart phone becoming the device of choice for consumers around the world when it comes to consuming media, data and calls, savvy brands have realised that they must learn to effectively communicate their offerings to a global audience. But what part does the operator play in all this and how can they extract profit?

Has fraud prevention ever been so important as revenues erode?

Since the dawn of telecoms fraud has seen percentages of operator revenues evaporate. Whether that meant the simplistic fraud of forged coins in phone boxes or the highly technical frauds perpetrated today, operators still had to carry the leakage. Now, as operators dip for the first time into becoming unprofitable as voice revenues erode, fraud is even moreunacceptable. Are service providers doing enough and is the vendor community adequately supporting them?

Can you provision without provisos?

Giving your customers what they want when they want it is a critical performance characteristic upon which service providers are judged but, as the service portfolio becomes still more complex, are service providers able toaddress this fundamental effectively?

What is the role of a service provider in the digital value chain?

Service providers desperately need to continue to be involved in the digital value chain and are styling themselves as the enabler of the ‘long tail’ of application, content and service providers. They are well equipped to do this with the trusted relationship they already have with their customers but are they moving quickly enough to avoid this becoming yet another missed opportunity?