Leap Wireless Picks Convergys for Billing

Leap Wireless (LEAP), the parent company of Cricket Communications, has announced that Cricket has signed a multi-year managed services agreement with Convergys (CVG) for the implementation and ongoing management of its new billing system. The new BSS/OSS solution will be implemented by Convergys, and will be based on Convergys’ Active Mediation and Rating and Billing Manager product offerings.

To help facilitate a seamless transition of customer billing from its current provider, VeriSign, to Convergys, Leap also announced that Cricket purchased VeriSign’s billing system software and simultaneously entered into a transition services agreement with Convergys for billing services using the existing VeriSign software until the conversion to the new system is complete. At the same time, Convergys acquired VeriSign’s relationships with other customers utilizing VeriSign’s billing system and Convergys will now provide billing services to those customers. Cricket anticipates a smooth transition and expects there will be no disruption to normal billing activities.

“Cricket’s decision to transition our customer billing in this manner was based on three critical customer experience requirements: reliability, efficiency and scalability,” said Keith Buckley, senior vice president, supply chain management and operations projects for Cricket. “Transitioning VeriSign’s software enables us to efficiently and cost effectively maintain the current billing system while taking advantage of Convergys’ years of experience in billing system operations supporting multiple customers."

The new Convergys solution will serve as the core of Cricket’s billing and customer care platform, and its scalable capabilities will allow Cricket to consolidate all customer account and transaction information into a single, convergent solution, said the companies. In addition, the solution’s rating flexibility will provide support for service convergence across voice, high-speed data, and content delivery services. These capabilities will be critical in helping Cricket to expand its growing portfolio of wireless voice, broadband and prepaid service offerings and are projected to lower the total cost of billing and customer care operations, according to Convergys.

“We are pleased to have signed both a transition service agreement and a master managed services agreement with Cricket to assist it in the transition to a next-generation billing solution,” said Bob Lento, president of Information Management for Convergys.