Picking a Prepaid Plan

Approximately 31% of Americans do not have checking accounts, and 90 million Americans pay for services in cash. These people are all potential wireless customers, but 30% to 40% of this group only can obtain service with a substantial deposit. Thanks to a flexible prepaid option, Triton PCS can offer service to people who, for a variety of reasons, may want to use cash rather than credit to establish wireless service.

Triton PCS is a member of the AT&T Wireless Network and does business under the brand name SunCom. Its network covers 13 million POPs from Virginia to northern Georgia. The company hopes to expand its markets through prepaid service to include people who enjoy up-front cost control. These potential subscribers include commercial customers, such as delivery companies, and customers averse to long-term contracts. People in motion, such as military personnel or college students, also are prime candidates. People with short-term needs who need to stay in contact -- contracted employees ontemporary assignment, expectant mothers or people with illnesses -- may select p repaid as well.

ACCOUNT VS. DEBITPrepaid services generally fall into two categories: debit-card-based or account-based systems. Debit-card-based systems require customers to purchase cards for fixed dollar amounts. Any type of call is the same price. Additionally, the cards expire on a set date, and customers must purchase them in their carriers' home markets.

"Simplicity is the key to selling, customer service and, ultimately, to profitability in the wireless industry," said Steve Skinner, Triton PCS president & COO. "Our research and many industry studies show that consumers want easy-to-understand pricing and billing plans. We wanted our prepaid plan to be as simple as possible for the customer and for us."

To achieve this simplicity, Triton PCS chose an account-based system. Skinner said an account-based system effectively transfers a debit card's value to a database under the customer's name. Triton PCS sets up its prepaid customers' accounts just like traditional post-pay accounts, complete with long-distance usage, call-pattern tracking, features and various rate plans.

"Ease of replenishment in a prepaid system is important to customer satisfaction and retention," Skinner said. "Our system offers prepaid customers two options for replenishment: cash or credit cards."

Customers using cash can replenish accounts at Triton PCS retail locations, agents or at third-party replenishment outlets. Customers using credit cards can replenish accounts over their handsets without entering their credit-card numbers. When establishing accounts, customers provide bank-account or credit-card information, then replenish their accounts automatically. Triton PCS liked the account-based system because its customers can replenish their accounts with any whole-dollar amount, and the amount doesn't automatically expire. In contrast, customers must purchase debit-card-based prepaid accounts in fixed amounts, and the cards expire in 30, 60 or 90 days.

THE SEARCH FOR PREPAID SERVICETriton PCS searched for a prepaid wireless service that was easy for customers to use and efficient to operate. The company quickly discovered that most prepaid services have changed little since first coming on the market. Those systems, according to the company, did not provide the flexibility Triton needed for its new marketing and customer-service programs. New programs stress treating prepaid customers the same way as post-pay customers, and Triton PCS needed a system to help it do so. This ideal is part of what Skinner calls the company's "customer-service obsession," as it aims to provide the best customer service in the industry.

In the end, Triton PCS chose National Telemanagement's SmartPay Wireless system. The system looks and feels like a conventional post-pay system, especially through its ability to offer prepaid customers a choice of rate plans with "buckets" of minutes at economical rates. Most prepaid plans are different from post-pay, requiring customers to pay a premium per minute, the company said. The Triton PCS prepaid program provides services in real time, including account replenishment, credit-card verification and roaming. A real-time system allows customers to check up-to-the-minute account balances over the phone, 24 hours a day. When an account is low, a whisper prompt notifies the customer of his account balance when he places a call.

PREPAID ROAMINGMost prepaid systems are network-based, which provide service as long as customers remain within the designated calling area. However, Triton PCS's system eventually will allow it to extend automatic prepaid roaming service to its prepaid customers. Customers place calls on other carriers' networks without entering extra digits or using PINs, which debit-card-based systems often require.

The system's roaming network processes calls at the switch, rather than using a back-hauling process to send calls elsewhere for processing, which costs time and money. If a carrier does not recognize a caller's phone number, it routes that call to the on-site call processor. The on-site processing unit identifies the call either as a prepaid customer from another carrier or as an unidentified roamer. The database validates prepaid customers' calls and sends them out from the carrier's switch. It gives unidentified roamers other options such as calling collect or using a calling card for billing the call.

Processing calls at the switch also means the account-based prepaid system can deliver PCS features such as voice mail, call waiting and call forwarding. The system's switch-based setup allows Triton PCS to activate call usage, voice mail, call waiting, call forwarding and other services in each customer's account profile. To maximize the cost control that a prepaid system offers, most of Triton's prepaid packages do not offer voice mail automatically. Customers get voice mail only if they request it, so they do not pay for services they don't need.

Triton PCS receives several other operational benefits from its prepaid system including mid-call tear-down service and separate accounting. Mid-call tear down cuts off customers from all calls, except 911 and 611 customer service, when their current accounts run out. The calls terminate at the switch at the exact moment the account depletes. Triton manages customer accounts separately from its billing system, reducing the obstacles encountered in implementing prepaid.

"This technology reduces the financial risk to the service provider while minimizing administrative costs of managing the program," Skinner said.

Its prepaid program represents another way to establish the company's reputation as a standard-setter in the wireless industry.

"We look at the prepaid option as one element in a product portfolio that appeals to different lifestyles and life stages," Skinner added. "Prepaid remains a good alternative for people who may have difficulty establishing credit, but with a customer-friendly service like ours, you can do a lot more with prepaid."