The rampant entry of new players in the telecom industry and the waning use of voice and SMS services have the established telcos worried about their future prospects. Due to the intense competition and receding profits from their traditional offerings, telecom operators are looking for new avenues to improve their bottom line. From telco-OTT partnerships to launching fresh and improved offerings like bundled services, telecom operators are trying their hand at everything to garner customer interest from all corners. However, many telcos are failing to bring their services to market in time, which is leading to lost opportunities. The primary cause of this failure lies in the poor telecom billing systems they have employed.
Limitation of Traditional Telecom Billing Systems
In the past, traditional telecom billing systems were primarily devised to handle billing tasks related with calls and SMS. When there was a need for creating a new plan or scheme, these billing systems were needed to be altered by the developer to meet the current requirements.
The traditional IN network, which was used in abundance in the past, for prepaid billing is simply not flexible enough for offering new plans and services on the fly. Moreover, the lack of an efficient Online Charging System (OCS) in older billing systems further reduces their efficacy in the modern telecom business. Hence, it has become essential to take help from telecom billing specialists that can come up with billing systems that address your unique business requirements.
Overcome the Challenge of Competition with Reliable Telecom Billing Systems
Most traditional billing systems can hardly distinguish between the types of data utilized by customers let alone address the complex requirements of businesses. Although telcos do comprehend that there is a need for a better billing system, they do not make changes as they are fearful about the ramifications it might have. Hence, it is very important that the telecom billing systems that you employ are backward compatible with your older services. Once you have found such software, you can phase out your existing system slowly and make use of the newer billing system for reaping the following rewards:
- Real-time usage capture and flexibility – Telecom billing specialists can help you get your hands on telecom billing software that have an OCS at their heart. Such a software solution will help you capture CDRs (Call Data Records) in real-time and, unlike a traditional IN prepaid system, it will be a lot more flexible.
- Cross-product discounts – Offering cross-product discounts are probably the most underutilized marketing tactic in the telecom industry. Not only it helps you attract new users for your services, it also helps you in making the most of your underused services. For example, if you find that customers are not using as much data as you want (and it is lying wasted), you can offer a cross-product discount that rewards the customer with extra data on using the IPTV service.
- Single unified view with fully-itemized invoices – It is a well-known fact that most customers seek complete transparency in their bills and want one bill for all the services that they are using. With modern telecom billing systems, it is possible to do address this requirement of businesses. Not only you are able to offer a single bill, you are also able to provide them a
bifurcated account of all the services that they have used within a particular billing cycle.
The above-mentioned advantages are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the range of benefits offered by modern telecom billing software. The onus lies on you to find such a telecom billing system that can be beneficial for both you and your subscribers. At Vcare, we offer state-of-the-art telecom billing systems that can be customized to meet your specific business requirements.