Could Your Call Accounting Improve with Better Carrier Billing?
December 04, 2014
By Susan J. Campbell
TMCnet Contributing Editor
When was the last time you understood your wireless bill? Even if you have a contracted amount, the total at the bottom of the page is rarely ever the same and rarely reflects that number. When you ask the wireless carrier for an explanation, you generally walk away more confused and instead of confident in their math.
If you take this process and multiply it by the number of wireless carrier bills you may receive for your employee base, it’s enough to cause a spike in blood pressure. It also points to the need for more than just call accounting – there needs to be a change in the way that wireless carriers are billing their customers.
A recent blog post from call accounting solutions provider, ISI (News - Alert) pointed to this problem and the fact that consumers consider electronic bills to be an unreliable distribution method for carrier payments. The reason? According to ISI, summary versions of paper bills are often used for payments to carriers. The total amount on the electronic bill rarely matches that of the paper bill, and not generally in the customer’s favor.
These differences aren’t just rounding errors, either. Without the detail that you need to decipher the charges, it’s difficult to hold the carrier accountable. If the bill is for your business, you need that level of detail in your call accounting audits, especially if you’re applying specific charges to specific departments.
It also doesn’t help if your carrier is processing more than one bill each month. It’s not uncommon for carriers to process different bills at different times of the month for different services. As a result, you may get a bill for something you believe you’ve already paid for and set it aside. You then run into the possibility of late fees or service cancellation simply due to a misunderstanding.
Taking a step back, it’s hard to understand why a carrier would cling to inefficient processes. Doesn’t it cost more money to process invoices for the same company multiple times a month? Do costs also go up in terms of contact center support to answer questions about confusing bills? Does the level of dissatisfaction that follows lead to higher churn and therefore higher costs for customer acquisition and retention?
Chances are there are a number of things being done a certain way within the industry due to mergers and acquisitions and even the dedication to cling to the status quo. If carriers applied the same process that you do in your call accounting audits, they likely would apply some much-needed fixes. The time to start demanding better billing practices from carriers is now.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi