Customer Relationship Management

Hi Sripathy, recently there was a discussion on 'Kill the bill' topic in TMForum mentioning the point to increase the usage and promotion of e-billing and also discussed various advantages. As you have rightly given the example of missed call, there can be various analysis done using online billing, which will surely impact the customer experience.

Sripathy, I think presenting a list of the calls initiated by the customer and which were not picked up (due to switched off, out of range, mobile on silent mode etc) by the called party would help. This way customer will be reminded to make these calls again and telecom companies will get additional revenue. But need to check if billing can get this information from network elements.

Hi Amit,

That's right! e-billing is a hot topic with all the service providers as it increases the visibility and also saves cost by reducing the Bill Print expense.

But we need to debate on how do we ensure a customer sees his bill.

Since the ebills have passwords to open, in some cases it creates user inconvenience some time but that is the only secured option i see. What do you say?

Suhas, I dont think it will be a good idea as the way the Indian market (assuming we are limited to Indian market) is full of Marketing calls, it is tough to say that customer will ever call or would like to call on those list of numbers. But surely in respect to Call drop, operators can really provide the analysis and adjust those calls in the billing. (as I am sure there will not be a single day that customer does not experience call drop).

Hi Suhas,
Absolutely, as I mentioned the whole BSS/OSS landscape needs to be aligned to achieve this.

As you said, Mediation system sends only the successful calls and not the missed calls. But, there is a lot of information lying on Network Management systems and Network elements which can be used for such Value adds, do you have any other view on this?

Sripathy, You are touching nerves and want to add more to do value addition for customer satisfaction.

Not sure when service providers will really give a serious thought on high Customer Satisfaction.

Proper SLAs and Effective Turn around time - to improvise in complaints / issues.

More value -added, business analysis details to be provided so that a layman customer (who doesn't care) much on the bill/usage provides analytical/comparison/usagecomparison and really facilitate good service.

Moral:
Customer to be loyal/committed to Service Provider. So SP have to think how they can acheive this, what all models need to be in place ?

Hi Raj,
Well said, with the Number portability in place in many countries and it is also planned in other countries, it is inevitable that service providers should go a mile ahead.

Bill is one option where service providers can show their difference compared to other operators.
What do you think about this?

Amit, recently myself and Raj attended a series of presentations out of which one was on the Reconnection service in case of call drop (by Sriram_N@infosys.com). He proposed this as a service which can be additionally opted by the customer. When you opt for this service, you are provided a facility to automatically reconnect the dropped call. He proposed alternative billing options for this.

Hi Suhas,
This seems to be a good service. Can you elaborate on how it is done in the network and billing system? Which operator is doing this?

Amit, can you comment on this about your views.

Hi Sripathy

This idea helps many people to get back in touch, sometimes that call may change some one's life. Possibilities are there from the telecom people to provide the missed numbers in the bills. Whereby the details should not confuse the customers in the other way. My suggestion is to provide the no. of missed calls for the month in the monthly bill, if the customer wants to know the itemized bill then the telecom team has to send the list through their mail. As all the organisations are running behind Cost Cutting, whereby the possibilities of sending printout of all the missed numbers is not at all possible.

Today everyone is talking about green IT. e-billing would surely help in reducing the paper consumption and provide more information which is not possible in printed bills. But at the same time we need to think about how many people have access to technology or are aware of it. Educating them would be a painful thing to the service providers which will ultimately increase the OPEX. Itemized e-bills with information such as missed calls won't be a good idea, because the bill generation will take hell of a lot of time as the customer base with each provider is very huge. In my view, any of the service provider is mature in India, as I have used services from many service providers, no one has satisfied me completely when it comes to the way they present the bills. A lay man cannot understand what is there in the bill.

Hi Krishna,
Yes, the electronic billing (e-bill) would be the right way for such Value added Billing services or the same can be charged appropriately if hard copy is required.
What do you think about this?

Hi Arun,
I agree with your point on the Bill presentment and that bills are not easy to be understood by the layman and on e-billing promotion. Valid inputs.

But Value added billing services would be definitely needed to go to the next step in Billing arena. Definitely performance needs to be tuned for the same and it need not be given to all the customers.

It can be demand based and based on the market requirement and if market accepts.
What do you say?

Hi Suhas/ Sripathy,

I have experienced very good feature in Orange UK where for every dropped call (although sometimes even i dont know it is dropped call), the bill is adjusted accordingly. About reconnecting of the call, it can be good idea in pre-paid market. What you say Sripathy/ Suhas?

Hi Amit/Suhas,
About reconnecting the dropped call, it would be a good idea to provide it to both Postpaid and Prepaid customers.

But customers can be prompted before reconnection to ensure no complaints from customer.

What do you say? Amit can you also elaborate on your service experience with Orange UK. Do you feel there may be some revenue loss as well due to this, or any errors in this functionality can result in revenue loss right?

Sripathy, that could be a good idea to prompt the caller before the call. Other alternative is to offer it as a service. The customer may choose to opt for this service in which case he will not get a prompt but will directly be connected to the called party.

Hi Suhas,

If we offer it as a service, customer will not have the option to choose between calls.
I think we need to give the customer the option to choose which call is to be reconnected.

What do you say?

Hi Sripathy,
Data has become vital for business today and compliance to data protection policy would become one of the key for maintaining existing and to get new business. Am sure Customer awareness around this area would help realise the importance.

e bill certainly is one of best options as it makes life easy like any on-line service while fulfilling the contribution to save the environment.

Providing/highlighting customer with summary of usage details for regions (may be top one/three) to which he/she incurs max cost for a given bill period can also help to decide instantly on the new schemes (south std, weekend SMS schemes to specific region etc.,) launched by the provider

Hi Suresh,
Excellent comments! calling pattern analysis not only helps the company to analyse the customer usage trend but also helps customer to plan his package.
What do you say?