With the rise in competition in the telecom industry, CSPs (Communication Service Providers) are trying their best to wow their customers. Most of the telecom vendors are busy expanding their network outreach and improving their service quality. While these efforts definitely increase customers’ satisfaction levels, the impact of such endeavors is not immediate.
A great way to instantly interest your customers in your products and services is by offering discounts. However, it is not always easy to devise a discount strategy with rudimentary telecom software solutions, when you are offering different services like calls, SMS, data, broadband, IPTV etc. And the tasks become even harder for those telecom vendors who are generating different bills for different offerings. The lack of a unified view of all the customer details makes it difficult for a telecom service provider to create a worthwhile discounting strategy.
Convergent Telecom Software Solutions for Best Discount Strategy
Taking the help of a telecom billing specialist and employing convergent billing can help in formulating a discount strategy. Convergent billing is the combining of all telecom service charges in a single invoice. Not only does it provide a unified customer view, but it also helps in offering cross-product discounts.
Convergent billing allows a telecom vendor to provide multi-service pricing and packaging. So, when telcos use convergent billing, they are able to entice customers by rewarding them for using a particular service. For example, if a telecom vendor finds that his customers are not using mobile internet data (and he has vast resources of data left unused), he can offer 100 MB free data to customers whenever they make 100 calls within a particular billing cycle. This discounting strategy has a short-term and a long-term benefit:
Short term benefit – The promise of free internet entices the customer into making 100 calls and increases the revenue of telecom service provider.
The long term benefit – Customers form a habit of using mobile data internet and start buying internet data packs in the future, thus, helping the telecom service provider in the long run.
This innovative strategy would not have been possible without convergent billing, which is why; it makes good business sense to employ telecom software solutions that allow for convergent billing.
Other Advantages of Convergent Billing
- With convergent billing, it becomes possible to have the same customer support team for both prepaid and postpaid customers.
- It is possible to start customer self-service, in which, customers can create their own service plans by adding from a range of telecom services.
- Convergent billing allows for single product and service catalog, which ensures faster time to market and lowers the cost of implementation.
It provides a single view of the customer and also allows for cross-product discounts, which can be used innovatively by telcos for enticing customers. Considering the increased competition in the telecom industry, it becomes imperative for telecom providers to take the help of a telecom billing specialist and enhance their billing process.