The ‘phone’ in smartphone is growing increasingly superfluous.
It almost goes without saying that smartphones these days perform far more than just transmitting voice and text messages from one place to another. They are television screens and mp3 players. They are internet browsers and maps. They are fitness tools and travel guides. Unlimited data plans therefore are one of the most important services telecoms operators should offer to meet their customers’ demands.
With the emergence of this smartphone age, the honeymoon period between customers and their operators is over. What was once a simple, straight-forward and monogamous relationship where the customer received a single fixed telephone line and one invoice a month has changed. It’s now one where operators must offer a variety of services to survive and the customer can make purchases from third parties such as content providers and resellers.
Consequently, traditional Business Support Systems (BSS) are inadequate for telecoms operators. They are not able to differentiate between the data types or what their customers are engaging in to run a smooth, customer friendly service.
Many businesses offer both prepay and post-pay services but they are complicatedly and expensively rated and charged on entirely different systems. This might cause inconvenience for your clients who would still rather have one single invoice for their services and will almost certainly cause you to dig deeper into your pockets. Continue reading “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Of Convergent Billing”
