Revenue assurance is one of the main challenges for any organisation.  This holds especially true for Internet Service Providers (ISPs), who operate in a business climate where new competition arrives on the scene almost daily. ISP billing software plays a central role in eliminating causes of revenue loss, customer frustration and inefficiencies that hamstring profit growth.

This blog looks at five vital areas your ISP billing software should address, and discusses areas such as automation, scalability, the all-important customer experience, and the solutions it brings to these challenges.

1. Will it address revenue assurance challenges?

An ISP’s revenue chain consists of a complex set of inter-related processes that span across various departments within the organisation. From Finance to Technology, service provisioning and subsequent billing needs to be as transparent as possible to eliminate any causes of revenue loss. With the explosion of new technologies and service offerings to customers, it is conceivable that oversight and mistakes within the billing process can occur.

ISP billing software eliminates inaccuracies by consolidating consumption data across multiple user subscriptions, and provides holistic views of customer portfolios - however complex they may be. The result is a simple, yet detailed and reliable billing mechanism that eliminates inaccuracies that can cause major frustration to customers and losses for ISPs.

2. Will it grow with my business?

As the customer base grows, so does ISP’s reliance on efficient systems and workflows. The road to success is littered with companies that have gone under due to insufficient planning for future growth. Basic financial and billing solutions may suffice when you are just starting out, and servicing a handful of customers. However, it’s when your customer base and service offering becomes more complex that reliance on scalable ISP billing software - capable of evolving alongside your business - becomes a necessity.

Scalable billing software allows businesses to customise their solutions according to changing demands without having to reinvent the wheel. If your billing software has limited capacity to accommodate high volume data-entry, slows under heavy processing, and lacks integration across platforms, you have probably outgrown your current solution.

3. Does it offer convergent billing solutions?

ISPs need to cater to the evolving demands of customers on the fly. Providing tailored solutions around your customers’ needs – and billing them accurately for it – is a crucial element to efficient service provisioning. Converged ISP billing systems allow you to manage services and calculate revenue in real-time. For example, a customer with bundled services is typically billed according to each service, according to consumption. That same customer might also wish to add or remove services as requirements fluctuate. In a scenario such as this, reliance on disparate systems can be time-consuming and prone to error. Convergent billing systems gives a holistic view of the customer profile and allows for the addition, removal or suspension of services on the fly, based on metrics pulled from the ISP billing software.

4. What about automation?

Well-designed ISP billing software aids in reducing time spent on recurring tasks by automating them, thus freeing up resources that can be otherwise channelled more productively. Billing automation simplifies complex data crunching tasks, and presents volumes of complex data in easy-to-understand formats to both the client and the business. Automation means less dependence on staff to crunch numbers, thus creating opportunities to focus on more customer-centric activities.

Think of how much time is spent on pulling complex reports from large customer databases typically found in an ISP environment, and factor in the human element that often leads to error. An automated billing solution removes much of the traditional bottlenecks that hamstring efficiency through reliable and predictable generation of billing information.

5. What added value does it offer my clients and my business?

If you hold a view other than that the customer is at the very centre of your business, then you’re in the wrong industry. Look at how your ISP billing software can bring value to the customer experience and create opportunities for generating higher revenues. In a market with limited differentiation, the customer experience is vital to retaining and attracting new customers.

Online customer portals that give detailed consumption and billing information has largely re-shaped the customer experience. Instead of customers having to endure seemingly endless phone calls to helpdesks and navigate through voice prompts in the hope of reaching the right department to resolve a concern or query, customers are now able to (and are expecting to) manage their accounts and services online. 

Sophisticated billing software not only alleviates much of the daily grind for ISPs, but also brings value to the customer experience by making information available on-demand. Customers can also leverage the power of your billing solution by customising their products online and viewing historic billing information, and thereby tailoring their subscriptions according to changing requirements.

Eliminate the chaos with SOLIDitech’s  ISP Billing Software Solution.

SOLID provides its customers with a single platform that not only automates repetitive tasks, but brings solutions to every aspect of the customer lifecycle. Our solutions eliminate traditional silos prevalent in businesses today by bringing a 360-degree, end-to-end view of business processes. Access to the right information at the right time is a major weapon in any organisation’s arsenal, and we understand that. At SOLIDitech, we eliminate manual processes and replace them with solutions that empower our clients to work smarter, not harder.