Quack

OK, now I have seen it all. There are certainly moves about by regulators to put the onus on telecomms providers to protect their customers from overspending, or at least making them more aware of charges that are accruing. In principle, this is not unreasonable. (more…)

There are more and more mobile phone and VOIP offerings appearing that feature a set number of “minutes” per month, and sometimes different categories of minutes. This style of pricing has always been common in the USA. I wanted to discuss a couple of issues that this raises. (more…)

(this can also be found in the Communications Alliance March 2007 Newsletter)

The Telco Gospel, Chapter 1. In the Beginning, there was Long Distance Resale. And the Resellers saw that the margins were generous, and that arbitrage opportunities abounded. And the Customers saw that discounts were available, and flocked to the Resellers like the seagulls. And the Resellers enjoyed the simplicity of selling everything at a mark-up. And the Regulator saw that it was Good.

Yes, it was good back in those days. (more…)

We’ve just had one Partner (the Billing Bureau word for “customer”) recently merge an acquired customer base into their retail billing environment, with another two of them recently announcing acquisitions, so the topic of billing migrations is high on my mind. While there is not a lot of consolidation at the bigger end of town, there has been a reasonable activity of this nature among smaller CSPs and ISPs.

The first one went very smoothly indeed. The Partner used (more…)

At the IIR Billing & Revenue Assurance conference this week, we enjoyed a fantastic presentation from the NT Power & Water Corporation, who implemented a new billing system that went … well, not very well.

Many customers were billed incorrectly and the media went absolutely crazy over the “scandal”, so in addition to fixing the problems (more…)

I’m very excited today, because my monthly Foxtel bill has arrived. Ordinarily, a pay TV bill would not get me excited (not even me!), but this bill is very special to me. You see, when we moved house some two and a half years ago, Foxtel was not readily available, so I cancelled the service and switched to Optus. It’s basically the same thing anyway, especially now that they both have digital.

Since that time, every month Foxtel have sent me a statement showing that my account is in credit for the princely sum of $46.20. For a while I was collecting them, accumulating them on the office noticeboard. The fantastic thing is that (more…)

One of the facts of life is that most people like to be accommodating. Customer has a small request … so you say “sure, that can be done, it’s just a 5 minute fix”.

How many times have we said this, only to regret it later? And how many times has this desire to accommodate the client ended up causing problems? The last time for me was 8 years ago and, believe me, never again!

Here’s how the nightmare played out…

1. Request comes from (more…)