Mobile users want richer, clearer, better billing that matches their personalised experiences

They need to communicate with them in ways that suit their needs and recognise that the digital, personalisation and contextual expectations of young people are markedly different to what has gone before. Billing, therefore, should be presented in formats that take account of the devices customers use. Billing information that renders well on a smartphone screen and tools to enable users to explore their mobile consumption in greater depth on tablets, are obvious and appealing functions to bring to a younger generation of consumer.

I’d argue that where the young go, the older generations swiftly follow. So operators should bear in mind that the vast bulk of their customer bases will be transitioning away from traditional bills in the coming years. Operators need to ensure they are ready for this and have billing communications tailored and ready for whatever their customers demand.Today, operators are failing to bill their younger users effectively. The bill, as a means to check what you are being charged is accurate will continue to be a requirement but these users want this information presented in far more appealing ways. Also, as the business model of telecoms changes away from metered voice minutes to flat rate bundles, users will want far more granular information about their consumption. They’ll want to know which elements of a bundle they use to the full, which they don’t use much of – think about how many SMS messages are included in your tariff and how many you actually send, and whether they should re-apportion their spend to enable them to talk less and surf more, for example.

The operator that has the agility to enable the flexibility that users demand will be successful and create differentiation in an increasingly crowded and uniform market. The bill can be a platform for the customer to manage their relationship with their operator and enable the operator to serve them better. I’m not suggesting that billing communications is the answer to all mobile operators’ challenges; but, as something that can be rolled out quickly and cost effectively and has a demonstrable, rapid return on investment, operators should not ignore it.

If they do so, it will be at their peril. Billing issues generate call centre interactions and are a key cause of customer dissatisfaction. There is an understanding among customers that mistakes can happen and, if they do, they will call in to get the matter resolved. However, in a typical two-year contract, the likelihood of churn increases with each call centre interaction, regardless of how speedily agents solve the issue. Repeated errors or issues start to add up in the customer’s negative column and are not forgotten at renewal time.

Better billing communications means understanding your customers better, treating them as an individual and fostering a transparent and trusted relationship with them. Operators that make better use of their billing communications will see their relationships start to alter, involving greater depth, greater loyalty and more frequent tendency for customers to recommend them. At the same time, they’ll be saving money in the call centre and at contract renewal time where retention rates will increase.

Billing communications enables operators to take that flat, monochrome, statement of account off their customers’ doormats and put it into their tablets, their smartphones and their PCs, allowing customers to drill deeper into the areas of the bill they want to know more about and ignore the list of numbers they called, if that’s what they want to do. Instead of leaving customers confused and suspicious of being overcharged, better billing communications puts them in control of the information they receive in a dynamic, individualised and colourful format.