With most of the multi service operators or MSPs looking forward to increasing growth prospects by streamlining customer engagement with their customers, convergent billing is set to become their engine for achieving this growth in the near future.
As per the latest market research reports, the sector will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 22% over the next five years. This will take its value from $2.86 billion at present to $7.88 billion in 2019.
If we look at today’s market scenario, data hungry mobility friendly devices such as Tablets, Smartphones, Phablets, Smart TV etc. are fast changing consumer lifestyles and with this change, they are now in need of better high-speed data & Value Added Services to empower their daily usage of applications and services. To cope up with this demand there is continuous evolution in networks such as 3G, 4G, LTE etc.
Moreover consumer are placing ever-greater demands on their operators to either “get it right” or lose their business. Today’s consumer expect mobile voice, fixed voice, data, IPTV, broadband, pre-paid and post-paid services from a single operator rather than going in for multiple set of players; so that they are able to easily manage & maintain single account to pay all their bills. This need of the consumer is becoming a big factor in fueling the need to have convergent billing solutions at the operator end.
To fulfill consumer requirement of having a unified bill for all the services in a Traditional BSS systems is not only costly but also very time consuming; since traditional systems tend to be inflexible and less operator friendly. This is where the Next generation convergent billing solution will enable the multi service operators with the capability to integrate all service charges onto a single customer invoice and offer a unified view to the customer thereby enabling centralized account management between operator and end user. Customer receives a single bill and makes single payment for all the services they have subscribed too. It also helps the MSO in leveraging and optimizing their Network Utilization which caters to all Networks & Subscriber types.
Value addition that an MSO can offer with Convergent Billing are:
- Convergent billing empowers multi-service bundling and pricing, whereby existing clients are allured to add new services and new clients are attracted by innovative bundled offerings.
- Centralized customer support for both Pre-paid & Post-paid customers.
- Single bill enables cross-service rebates, so that clients who request multiple services can receive special pricing.
- The solution enables MSPs in providing personalized services more effectively; with one single point of contact and a single view of services opted by the customer.
- Effectively offer a range of services such as OTT packages, shared data plans, sponsored data, location-based pricing and service in a single view format which is always easy to understand.
