Top 10 Reasons to Replace Your Telecom Billing System

10 Reasons Telcos Change Billing Vendors

If you are like most of the telco companies we talk to, billing is a huge challenge. It's also one of the most crucial aspects of any business. If you can't send invoices to customers, you won't get paid, and if you're not charging enough for your services, you lose money.

We have spoken with service providers of all sizes to learn more about common billing pain points and frustrations.  Based on their feedback, here are some top reasons telcos look for a new billing software vendor.

Top 10 Reasons to Replace Your Telecom Billing System

1. Consolidate disparate systems (go with a single-stack solution)
• Eliminate the swivel chair problem.
• Reduce duplicate data entry.
• Improve operational efficiencies.
• Decrease the potential for input error.
2. Remove limitations of your product catalog
• Enable bundling of different products.
• Set discounts for products.
• Use promo codes.
• Set individual price levels.
3. Speed up the quote-to-order process
• Quote items are pulled from the live product catalog.
• Electronic signatures are available for quote approval.
• Easily transition to new order for processing.
4. Fix inaccurate or inflexible invoices
• Calculate accurate charges for products or services.
• Fix errors (proration, rounding, etc.)
• Customize invoices for different accounts.
5. Bill for usage
• Fast rating of individual CDRs.
• Import from multiple usage sources.
6. Find lost revenue or leakage
• Bill customers for all active services.
• Enable full audits.
• Automate reporting mechanisms and alerts.
7. Tax properly
• Calculate correct taxes.
• Ensure proper tax rates and rules for all tax authorities.
• Fix non-compliance issues.
8. Improve the visibility of data
• Create, generate, or export reports.
• Produce call traffic studies.
• Share important data with customers (i.e., call details).
• Utilize real-time BI dashboards.
9. Decrease cost to manage, maintain, and support
• Reallocate internal resources.
• External costs are more affordable.
• Workflow automation.
10. Add new capabilities and features
• Architecture to facilitate business growth.
• Feature sets are evergreen.
• RESTful API into external systems.

By adopting a new billing system, telecoms can significantly reduce revenue waste caused by customer billing disputes resulting from incorrect pricing, rating errors, or other issues. Monitoring and minimizing these disputes can lead to improved revenue management.

A new billing system can also provide robust controls to ensure accurate billing by accounting for all billable activities. It can monitor and notify when billing exceptions happen. This capability allows companies to proactively identify and correct errors, preventing revenue leakage and maintaining customer satisfaction.

Timeliness in billing is crucial for revenue optimization. Implementing a new billing system can streamline billing operations and minimize delays. Companies can avoid revenue loss associated with late billing by automatically generating invoices. Timely billing improves cash flow and enhances overall financial performance.

Understanding that all service providers have unique requirements, a modern billing platform should provide maximum flexibility, scalability, and reliability.

For further reading, please see our related article on the Essential Features of a Telecom Billing System.