BILLING PROFILE
Useful tips on choosing your billing partner
Choosing the right billing partner could transform a reseller’s business, according to Shaun Bodsworth, Managing Director of Inform Billing Solutions.
Shaun Bodsworth C
hoosing a billing system could be described as one of the most important
decisions a reseller business can make. However, even more important is choosing the right billing partner, according to Bodsworth. This is especially true for new entrants into the voice resale market, Bodsworth points out. “Whether they are coming from a dealer background or from a mobile or ICT background, or if completely new to the voice resale market, having a partner that really understands billing and passes on its knowledge to the reseller’s team is absolutely critical,” Bodsworth commented. “For example, for new entrants into voice and mobile resale,
understanding mobile billing takes a different perspective commercially and operationally, and they need to understand this.”
All major billing platforms in the market will provide the fundamental ability to rate calls and bill customers. Most will have particular features that sound ‘sexy’ during a pre-sale demonstration, but as with many of these things, they are often unused in reality. Bodsworth observed: “This scenario is particularly relevant in the early stages as resellers need to focus on the core principals of customer set-up, rating of CDRs, billing of line rentals and additional services (eg, broadband, data circuits) and of course, accurate bill production and delivery.”
Having a partner that really understands billing is absolutely critical
2011 48 COMMS DEALER JUNE 2011
Although Inform Billing works with many resellers, some of which have been billing for years, the company remains sharply focused on giving new entrants a leg-up to the billing space, an ethos that remains a top priority for the firm. “Whether it’s standard calls and lines, VoIP, mobile or data services, many potential entrants have been put off entering the market due to the perceived cost and complexity of billing, and with good cause in many cases. However, this is not how it needs to be,” added Bodsworth.
New features including WLR3 integration, automated CDR collection and in-built customer management tools all help to improve the process. In addition, new entrants should also look for low cost start up options with 30-day contracts, believes Bodsworth. “One other area that often gets overlooked is the hardware and additional software requirements,” he said. “Many start-up
Marriot St. Pierre, Chepstow,Gwent. 16th June 2011
resellers simply do not have the technical and financial resources to enable a quick, low cost start-up. This is why start-up resellers should also look for hosted solutions whereby the billing provider takes care of the back office and simply allows the reseller to log in remotely without any server configuration.”
Flexibility
Also important is the provider’s flexibility in providing extra tools and add-ons to the core solution, allowing resellers to tailor their requirements. One such feature is the ability to offer billing services to sub- resellers and dealers (white label and bureau billing) thereby allowing medium sized resellers to become aggregators in their own right. “Web portals for end customers and partners alike also allows the reseller to maximise customer retention, offer greater flexibility, allow self-service and as a result reduce overall costs,” added Bodsworth.
The Inform Billing team have been developing billing software for over 10 years and they have seen many changes and improvements with software and general processes. Its Eclipse billing platform is a full multi- product platform that can bill all telecoms related services. Importantly, it has been billing multiple products for over five years now, meaning that early glitches have been ironed out. “That said, we are continually reinvesting in product development and all our customers benefit from free software upgrades,” noted Bodsworth. “We will shortly be rolling out an updated user interface that further enhances the customer experience.”
For larger and growing resellers, having a flexible provider that can implement bespoke requirements such as integration with internal applications or add-in solutions for specific customer requirements is critical, added Bodsworth. n
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