A billing solution is such a fundamental part of running a successful telecoms business, that it's often taken for granted. However, it’s importance shouldn’t be underestimated. After all, in addition to its core function of invoice generation, this software performs a number of other key tasks within a telecoms business, including monitoring cash flow, ensuring proactive contract renewal and, in some cases, maintaining regulatory compliance. Most importantly, the right billing platform should provide everything you need to unlock the highest levels of profitability.
Today's most efficient and effective billing solutions provide behind-the-scenes insights into the financial workings of your company. This provides you with the knowledge you need to make informed decisions about your cash flow, sales strategy, product portfolio and market proposition.
What's more, in a world where customer experience (CX) is becoming the most important differentiator for any brand, robust and accurate billing can also help you to earn the respect of your customers. Remember, organisations that invest in CX strategies for the entire customer journey can improve satisfaction levels by up to 20%.
After all, it's much easier to trust a company that consistently delivers timely, accurate, and professional-looking invoices. The question is, how do businesses find a billing platform that effectively manages all these requirements? To help you make an informed decision, we've put together a list of just some of the most important features any brand should look for when selecting a billing platform.
1. Simplicity and Ease of Use
Looking for a billing system that's easy for your team to adopt and access should be near the top of your priorities. Even the world's most sophisticated billing platform won't have a positive impact on your bottom line if your team doesn't know how to use it.
Beyond the platform itself, the support and training resources that back the platform should always be factored into the tender process. Will they be sufficient to help your team get the best results from the software?
Consider the needs of your billing team. For instance, selecting a service that offers secure access through a web browser means that your employees won't have to download or install the software before they can begin working with billing platform.
Additionally, given that 37% of the American workforce has already spent some time working remotely, it’s safe to say that the flexible working trend is increasing. If you employ remote working staff or have multiple offices, it might be a good idea to choose a billing system that your staff can safely access from anywhere.
2. Enhanced Data Security
While accessibility for your workers is an important feature to look for in your new billing platform, you also want to ensure that everyone has the right level of access to ensure better security for your system. For instance, granular user permissions can be essential in the billing world when it comes to making sure your people get only the information they need most.
Now that the GDPR deadline is just around the corner, resellers and service providers are under significant pressure to ensure that data is collected and stored according to the guidelines of strict protection regulations. Make sure you choose a vendor that can help you to meet these new demands.
Additionally, it's worth looking at whether the billing solution you're considering comes from a company that has universally recognised credentials, such as the "ISO 270001" certification for information security management. If these credentials are present, you should be able to rest assured that your billing platform manages sensitive data properly.
3. Reliable Reporting and Revenue Assurance
One of the most important functions of any effective billing platform is the ability to scrutinise your revenue streams. With sophisticated revenue assurance and reporting functionality, you can quickly identify areas of revenue leakage and misbilling.
Ideally you will want a system that can help automate your revenue assurance tasks. Reconciliation is one such task, the very necessary but equally very time-consuming process of comparing what you’re billing your customers to what you’ve been charged by your suppliers. In an ideal world, these would always match perfectly but, in reality, they often don’t. Having a platform that can automate this process ensures that you're neither undercharging your customers or being overcharged by suppliers.
This is just one example of the potential for revenue leakage. Another would be checking dial codes and destinations to ensure everything has been charged at the correct rates. A billing platform that can perform these checks automatically will help to ensure that you are consistently operating as profitably as possible whilst reducing both the time required to complete these tasks and potential for human error.
Aside from revenue assurance, you’ll also want to be able to conduct ongoing and in-depth reporting on your revenue streams to identify areas of your product portfolio that are the most profitable and those that are underperforming. This will in turn help you to refine your sales strategy and be more proactive when improving your cash flow and revenue choices.
4. Flexibility and Scalability
No matter how small your company might be when it first gets started, the mark of a great business is its ability to scale. In today's digitally-focused world, you could find your growth comes at a more rapid pace, thanks to agile working practices and cloud computing.