Shopping for Revenue Management

Figures don't lie, but sometimes they do fall short of telling the whole story. Wireless revenues are increasing by nearly 20% annually. This figure reflects the increasing public acceptance of wireless communications but doesn't take into account the fact that carrier revenue per subscriber actually has decreased.

"The days of signing up the real estate agent who had a bill of $300 a month is gone. Now, (carriers) are going after the average person who will talk for $12.95 per month," said John Glennon, spokesperson for Bell Atlantic. "To match that, we have to reduce the cost of supporting a subscriber."

As revenues decrease, the installed customer becomes more valuable. This means it's more critical than ever for carriers to have a complete revenue-management solution in place. And in today's fast-paced environment, there's always something new.

Many vendors are using Wireless '98 to showcase some of their latest developments and enhancements. Companies are offering solutions for a variety of revenue-management areas, including churn, customer service, consolidated billing, customer retention and Internet billing. As you head to the show floor, make sure you haven't left any of these key areas off your list.

CUSTOMER SERVICE *Bell Atlantic Mobile designed its current customer-care system to provide twice the amount of information it did a couple of years ago. Its new efforts include simplifying customer service. Bell Atlantic's current systems link up to standard PC utilities, making it easier and less expensive to train customer service representatives (CSRs).

"They don't have to learn something special like they used to in the old systems," Glennon said. "It's much easier to train them. There is core equipment that is company-specific. But after that, it is more generic and simplifies training. The learning curve goes down. It takes half the time to train a CSR on the new systems. Previously, every piece of technology was company-specific. That's no longer the case."

For information, call 908-306-7000.

*American Management Systems also is presenting ancillary solutions to help CSRs. Its software allows CSRs to make rapid business decisions from billing systems or databases. According to Mike Murphy, vice president and manager of the business unit of the Americas, these solutions will address churn, customer-based management and Internet billing access. For information, visit the web site at www.amsine.com, or call 303-215-3500.

*CBIS is focusing its advancements on customer service and is building end-to-end solutions to help carriers deal with customers from cradle to grave. Its system ties together all the known facts about a customer, including customer interaction, and makes that accessible to CSRs. According to Mark Rohde, senior vice president of sales and marketing, this results in knowledgeable CSRs and satisfied customers.

"We also are working with Matrixx Marketing to develop a statistically valid predictive model that identifies customers who are about to churn," he added. "The company's software will provide a statistical score against the customer segment of an individual consumer's propensity to churn before they actually do."

"It will allow carriers, through Matrixx's call-center capability, to identify potential churn and take the necessary pro-active steps or interventions."

For information, call 407-661-8000.

CONVERGING SYSTEMS *Sema Group is developing a new software solution called Vision 3000. According to Tom Clear, vice president and general manager, Vision 3000 is an object-oriented, open system created for the convergent and intelligent network requirements of the future. Scheduled for initial release during first quarter, Vision 3000 will be widely available by year-end.

For information, call 404-256-1447.

*Infocellular's InfoCell Con-Verge, integrates billing, credit scoring, warehouse distribution, financial and packaging systems into one solution.

"Our differentiating factor is that our product provides one point of entry into all of these systems," said Carol Ferrari-Gerbetz, director of marketing.

Converge now is available for the international market as well and can be applied to languages other than English. The company predicts that during the next year, most of its customers will come from Asia and Latin America, hotbeds for the growth of wireless.

"In 1998, we're focusing on acquisition," she said. "We are really working with billing systems providers as partners of ours and then going in together. Our company is trying to focus more on our strategic partners like Kenan instead of selling direct, so we are the point of sale up front and they are the billing system."

For information, visit the web site at www.infocell.com, or call 508-481-9590.

*Billing Concepts also offers a convergent billing solution. Its latest innovation, Modular Business Applications, is a single- source solution for all billing and information-management needs. This direct billing platform can be used as an in-house or service-bureau arrangement depending on a carrier's specific requirements.

For information, visit the web site at www.billingconcepts.com, or call 210-949-7000.

*Danet's BillPlex billing and customer-care solution tightly integrates billing and customer care, providing CSRs with easy-to-access, near-real-time data they need to address customer inquiries. The architecture allows for the acceptance of any usage data/format and forms the definition of any ratable element. These features allow you to readily support all service offerings and roll out new rate plans quickly.

Danet designed BillPlex with open architecture and convergence as key objectives. Published BillPlex APIs allow you to "plug and play" current and future network elements/applications quickly.

Danet also offers a modular suite of products for integration to billing and customer care systems. Its vendor-specific mediation device solutions provide an interface to the network elements for provisioning a mediation device for usage collection, and a conversion utility for easily interfacing to billing and customer-care systems.

For information, visit the web site at www.danet.com, or call 412-933-3004.

*Amdocs' customer-care and billing platform is designed with flexibility in mind. Through its fully modular design, the platform supports wireless, paging, wireline and multiservice operators. It also supports all technologies including AMPS, GSM, CDMA and TDMA. A rule-based, multitiered design maximizes flexibility in key areas such as new services, price plans, discount packages and bill formats. System scaleability facilitates rapid, cost-effective growth, and a modular architecture allows you to implement either individual components,such as message processing or bill formatting, or a fully integrated end-to-end solution.

For information, visit the web site at www.amdocs.com, or call 314-821-3242.

*National Independent Billing introduces WRITE2k, an information-management solution that streamlines all areas of wireless business: customer care, rating, billing and dealer management. By using an object-oriented design, WRITE2k allows you the flexibility to customize products and services to attract new customers, reduce churn and provide quality customer care. WRITE2k features customized scripting, customer scoring, data mining, smart care via the Internet and a variety of invoice delivery mechanisms.

For information, visit the web site at www.nibinc.com, or call 507-625-1691.

*Tandem is taking steps toward converging customer care and billing into one solution with its new end-to-end architecture. The Convergence Enterprise Architecture (CEA) is a suite of fully integrated, scaleable billing and customer-care solutions. The CEA consortium is made up of leading solution providers, resellers and system integrators. Through Tandem's efforts and the CEA consortium, wireless carriers soon will be able to address the huge demand for 1-stop shopping in the telecommunications marketplace.

As a recent boost to the initiative, Tandem spokesperson Scott Blevins said that Microsoft is joining the CEA consortium.

"The idea behind the CEA architecture is that you have a platform on which you can bring together all the billing applications," Blevins said. "What you have is a plug-and-play network, an area in which Microsoft has considerable expertise."

Such partnerships will become even more common in the wireless industry, as companies join to build other converged solutions.

For information, visit the web site at www.tandem.com.

*"We are likely to see partnerships in which a variety of companies, each with their own specialty, work together for a common purpose," said Stephen Combe, director of product management for Subscriber Computing. "This is not a static market. The demands of customer care and billing are increasing. Vendors are specializing in many parts of the industry. As each vendor becomes more specialized, partnerships will become more critical. In the future, you will see suites of products offered rather than a single-vendor approach. Ultimately, this will offer the customer the best of breed in each application market."

For example, Subscriber Computing is working with Application Program Interface (API) to develop an open system so that it can be integrated easily with other systems.

Subscriber Computing also is unveiling updated versions of its Internet applications. Invision allows end users to manage their phone bills over the Internet. Invisionpro makes the net accessible to carriers for sales and activations. According to Combe, Invison and Invisionpro will be adopted to Java.

For information, visit the web site at www.subscriber.com, or call 714-260-1500.

*Lightbridge and Coral Systems are providing software-based services to help carriers acquire customers quickly and retain them. Telesto, Lightbridge's network of integrated customer-acquisition and retention solutions, provides best-in-class credit, fraud, churn, channel and market performance solutions to carriers such as 360degrees Communications, AT&T Wireless, BellSouth Mobility DCS, Omnipoint and Sprint PCS.

At Wireless '98, Lightbridge and Coral Systems are showcasing new features and applications dealing with churn, retail management and fraud.

For information, visit the web site at www.lightbridge.com; or call 617-890-2000; visit Coral Systems' web site at www.coralsys.com, or call 303-772-5800.

*Bell Atlantic and EDS have partnered to create a new software solution called Vision/Empower, which also allows customers to order services or view billing over the web.

"We have several additional features carriers are requesting in the marketplace," said Denise Keller, industry relations manager for EDS. "One of those is to have several handsets with the same number programmed into them. This is beneficial to smaller businesses."

Many carriers also want to provide charges for multiple services on a single bill. Long distance and paging is available in EDS' CMIS product.

"The buzz word is convergence, having the charges for multiple services delivered by a service provider appear on a single bill," Keller said. "This is some of the capability that Empower can support."

For information, call Bell Atlantic at 800-999-1210; call EDS at 617-890-1000 or visit the web site at www.eds.com.

MANAGING DATA Like EDS, many software providers soon will unveil new and reprised products designed to merge and simplify many components of the billing process.

*International Telecommunication Data Systems (ITDS) is carefully evaluating the advantages of convergent billing, according to Joe Juliano, executive vice president of product security and management.

"This will make it possible for us to bring in more calling-card applications and other services," Juliano said. "Most likely, we will have some of that in the 1998 time frame, or shortly thereafter. There's a lot of talk in the industry about convergence billing, but in our view, billing is only one aspect that needs to be converged. Customers should have a 1-stop shopping situation. Convergence will allow for that and for discounts on all services as well."

Meanwhile, the company announced that the newest version of its flagship solution will be available on an HP/UX server platform, using an Oracle database accessed via a Windows 95 GUI client application. The solution supports revenue generation, collection and subscriber management. The new application features enhanced capabilities for subscriber acquisition and retention, including functional improvements in point of sale, inventory integration, A-Key management and multiple network element interfaces.

For information call 203-329-3300.

*GTE TSI is addressing a variety of areas in revenue management, according to Helen Harris, media relations administrator. GTE TSI is highlighting its ability to simplify connectivity for wireless operators, specifically interoper-ability between different billing standards and fully integrated data to be used in various applications, including roaming abilities.

The company is focusing on seamless international roaming, in particular inter-standard roaming and interoperability between CDMA, TDMA, AMPS and GSM. It also is exploring fraud management with solutions that are highly integrated, comprehensive and seamless.

For information, visit the web site at www.tsi.gte.com, or call 813-273-3136.

*Systems/Link's Roamex product is a network for exchanging roaming call detail records and directly correlates to its fraud product, FraudTech 2000. Roamex analyzes records and sends them back to the home carrier in real time. According to John Murphy, director of product management, this is an improvement over the previous system. Before Roamex, you had to wait for the billing process to complete before you got the fraud data, and that could take as long as a month.

"With Roamex, the application is at the carrier site," Murphy said. "A determination is made as to who the home carrier is. Then, the data is sent back to the home carrier and put in a fraud profiler. A fraud analyst can look at the activity of customers almost as soon as the activity takes place."

Roamex also is back-tied to other revenue-management functions such as its Home & Away Prepaid Billing. This solution uses the Roamex network to deliver call-detail reports.

For information, visit the web site at www.syslink.com, or call 609-371-2000.

*H.O. Software now offers its Over-the-Air Activation solution, a package solution that expands carriers' distribution options. The activation process is faster, and activation for all new features is easily accessible.

Real-time billing allows you to look up rated call records in real time in the customer service database of HOCIMS. Digital Services Billing will increase the range of H.O.'s current billing categories to include software. These new services include short- messaging services, message-waiting indicator and caller ID. In addition, all services will be listed on a single billing statement and supported from one platform.

For information, call 912-234-8899.

BILLING STATEMENTS & FORMATS *Celltech Information Systems has developed a billing and support system that provides Windows-based customer management and a multiservice statement format. Users maintain local control of the customer database, allowing quick and easy access to subscriber data.

Celltech's multiservice statement format provides statements that address the needs of both multiservice and single-service accounts. The statement format is designed to offer parameter-based flexibility to modify certain features of the statement layout. In addition, advanced printing capabilities such as duplexing increase the quality of the statement presentation and provide more economical billing production.

For information, visit the web site at www.celltechinfo.com, or call 281-873-2300.

*OSG Billing Services also is helping reduce billing costs. The company recently announced that it incorporated Postalsoft Software for address correction and presorting. This allows you to receive the lowest possible postage rates and prepares its database addresses to meet United States Postal Service reclassification automation standards. The software also generates a standardized address report to let you update its database for future mailings. By expediting mail delivery this way, you can ensure prompt payment response.

OSG also has worked with software vendors to develop a system that provides 100% integrity for each mail piece processed. OSG guarantees that every single- and multiple-page invoice will be accounted for and mailed as a complete unit.

For information, call 201-871-1100.

*Boston Communications Group is offering a new version of its software application for prepaid services. With Boston's Carrier to Carrier or Coast to Coast (C2C) national prepaid program, you can offer end users wireless services on a real-time basis without having to 303-772-5800, or the at create a traditional billing statement.

You can reduce expensive paperwork to manageable proportions. This solution will help shrink costs generated by creating monthly statements, because you will no longer incur processing charges and actual costs of rendering the bill, such as paper stock, postage, shipping and distribution. You also can virtually eliminate human capital costs associated with billing, customer care and collections.

For information, visit the web site at www.bcgi.net, or call 617-692-7000.