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Billing 2.0: Emerging Challenges
and Opportunities
Alice Harris
Director, Billing
CenturyLink
OSS/BSS Summit, London, September 2011
Not to be distributed or reproduced by anyone other than CenturyLink entities.
Copyright © 2011 CenturyLink All Rights Reserved
Billing 1.0 – The Good Old Days
All we needed was a customer, a typewriter, and a pencil
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About CenturyLink
CenturyLink is the third largest telecommunications
company in the United States.
We provide broadband,
voice and wireless services
to customers ranging from
rural American consumers to
the Fortune 500 companies
We have a 210,000 route mile
fiber network that spans the
U.S. from coast to coast
15.1 Million access lines
5.4 Million broadband
customers (as of 6/30/11)
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Copyright © 2011 CenturyLink All Rights Reserved
Billing at CenturyLink
• CenturyLink produces over 150M invoices per year
• ≈10% is electronic in various formats – web, CD, DVD,
etc.
• We provide different invoices and delivery methods for
different customer types
• Consumer invoice
• Color with personalization
• Enterprise invoice
• Bill Analyzer tool to review invoices and allow invoice
data analysis by invoice, across invoices, by product,
charge type, etc.
• Reduces need & desire for printed invoice
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Not to be distributed or reproduced by anyone other than CenturyLink entities.
Copyright © 2011 CenturyLink All Rights Reserved
Billing 2.0
The Challenge
•Complete, accurate, timely are table stakes
• Historical criteria for a good billing experience
- Google search of “telecom invoice expense management” yielded
644,000 results
– It you’re not complete, accurate and timely, someone will help
you with it
•To provide differentiation a company must do
more in its “monthly appointment”
• Why is your billing experience better?
• In what way does it enhance your offering?
• What extras do your customers receive that others don’t?
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Copyright © 2011 CenturyLink All Rights Reserved
Billing 2.0
The Challenge – Competing Interests
•Invoice Innovation
• Enhance the customer
experience
- We are no longer utilities
- One size does not fit all
• Keep costs low
• Protect revenue
The Cost of Print & Mail
•Product Innovation
• How do we bill for emerging technologies like cloud?
• How do we anticipate other technologies that are still being designed?
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Copyright © 2011 CenturyLink All Rights Reserved
Billing 2.0
Qwest Consumer Invoice Innovation – A Case Study
• Background
• From 2007 to 2009, Qwest collapsed most Consumer
invoice styles to one common invoice
• The project also installed new formatting software
• Successes
• Reduction in bill inquiry calls
• All consumer customers had the same look and feel for the bill
• What the customer received and what the CSR saw were the same
• Challenges
• Presentation still looked like a “utility bill” to a large extent
• Didn’t reinforce brand and product attributes
• In late 2009, Consumer Channel wanted to build on
recent improvements in the invoice
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Not to be distributed or reproduced by anyone other than CenturyLink entities.
Copyright © 2011 CenturyLink All Rights Reserved
Billing 2.0
The Qwest Consumer Invoice – A Case Study
Research showed…
Customers will continue to want paper bills
• 57% of respondents in a 2007 Zoomerang study “consider mail the preferred
method of delivery for “must-read” documents such as bills and statements”
Customers pay attention to invoices
• Open rate on invoices is 95% while direct mail is only 7%
• Document review on an invoice averages between 1 and 3 minutes with 85% of
people reviewing twice
• One Adobe study saw bill offer revenue increases of up to 31%; bill offer response
rate and time improvements of 36 and 34% respectively
Invoice marketing helps perfect the customer experience
• One on one messaging tells our customers we know them
• We offer distinctive individualized products and services based on what they
already use
Invoice marketing is less expensive
• Already mailing the invoice; decrease production and postage charges on stand
alone marketing that might not get read
As a result of this analysis, Qwest decided to move to a
transpromotional invoice
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Copyright © 2011 CenturyLink All Rights Reserved
Billing 2.0
The Qwest Consumer Invoice – A Case Study
•
Transactional
invoice items on
the left of the
statement
• Bill amounts by
category
Personalized marketing
offers on the right
• Customer data
used to provide
specific offers
TRANSACTIONS + PROMOTIONS = TRANSPROMO
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Not to be distributed or reproduced by anyone other than CenturyLink entities.
Copyright © 2011 CenturyLink All Rights Reserved
Billing 2.0
The Qwest Consumer Invoice – A Case Study
•Transpromotional bill debuted in former Qwest consumer
markets in May 2010
• Initial results were very promising
- Similar to what is seen in research when color is added to an invoice
– More response, faster
• More importantly, results have held true for over a year
- Color modernized the bill; compelling offers made it a better sales tool
– Revenue improvement, bill inquiry call decrease
- Shortly after deployment, marketing on the bill became the #1 stimulated
call reason in former Qwest consumer markets
- Revenue from the bill paid for increased bill production costs very quickly
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Copyright © 2011 CenturyLink All Rights Reserved
Billing 2.0
Mission Critical in the Enterprise Space
•Accenture research
• 2008 study of 100 North American and European carriers and 100
large enterprise customers
• 10% of enterprise customers studied reported having terminated a
contract with their carrier because of poor billing performance
•Convergys research
• 2010 North America — Corporate Telecommunications Survey
• More than 50 percent of enterprise decision-makers say that
"accurate billing that is easy to understand" is their most important
consideration when partnering with a service provider
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Copyright © 2011 CenturyLink All Rights Reserved
Billing 2.0
Mission Critical in the Enterprise Space
•Anticipating customer needs in the enterprise space is also
more challenging
• Ease of understanding, ability to control costs while providing
departmental and other detailed information
• Analysis of data is critical
- View the data in the way the customer views their business
- Allow customer to make ad hoc changes and control presentation of data
- Enable manipulation of invoiced data
• Provide billing solutions that fit the product being purchased
•Solving your customer’s invoice needs can also help your
bottom line
• Moving to an automated online bill analysis tool for former Qwest
enterprise customers eliminated the need to print almost one half million
invoice pages monthly
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Copyright © 2011 CenturyLink All Rights Reserved
Billing 2.0
Final Thoughts for Meeting the Challenge
•Begin with the end in mind
• Voice of the Customer
- What do they need in both existing
and new markets you wish to enter?
• Industry and technology research
Usage
Rating
- SWOT analysis on what is in
the marketplace
- Key purchases in customer facing
applications can make a large, visible
difference in your customer experience
Discount
• Capabilities analysis and
budget requirements
- Can you really afford to build a
“world hunger” solution?
• Planning, execution, governance
What the Customer Sees
THE INVOICE
(in all its forms)
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Copyright © 2011 CenturyLink All Rights Reserved
QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
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Not to be distributed or reproduced by anyone other than CenturyLink entities.
Copyright © 2011 CenturyLink All Rights Reserved