U.S. Bill Shock Agreement: A Chance to Win Back the Hearts of Customers?

By Greg Coogan

U.S. consumers are more than ready for some good news about wireless billing, and a welcome change has come their way. The FCC, CTIA and Consumer’s Union announced a set of voluntary guidelines for disclosing when wireless customers are about to exceed their usage allotments and incur additional charges for roaming, data, texting and airtime.

But will this change to embrace a more user-friendly billing model make a significant difference in how customers perceive the wireless industry?

Let’s face it, wireless service providers have had a remarkably prickly relationship with their customers, as industry practices regarding service and billing have been difficult for customers to understand.

Long-term contracts with termination fees, subsidized handsets that gave the illusion that phones grew on trees, opportunistic roaming practices and the inability of customers to fully understand and predict their own usage patterns – all have contributed to customer confusion, dissatisfaction, and even distrust.

On top of that, wireless service providers knew their industry had a mounting problem when surprises in customer billing became so common that the phenomenon quickly had a catchphrase: bill shock. Opening a monthly cell phone bill was a bit like playing Russian Roulette: The customer could be looking at a bill for what he or she expected, or could be looking at a bill for hundreds or thousands of dollars beyond their expectation.

Wireless service was one of the few things customers could buy without knowing in advance what it would cost them at the end of the month. And providers could only tell customers what the price was after customers consumed the service and caveat emptor was good advice indeed.

While postpaid wireless billing is a miracle of sophistication and capability, allowing customers to use their wireless service nearly anywhere around the world, it was next to impossible for customers to know with confidence what they would pay for any given call or email download.

This perceived infringement of informed consent and pricing transparency did not go unnoticed by regulators who were threatening to mandate changes in the United States, which led the CTIA to agree to a set of voluntary disclosure rules, which should help a great deal.

To their credit, many wireless operators have already been proactive in this area, but by 2013, under the new voluntary guidelines, all wireless service providers would offer customer alerts to notify customers before they exceed their usage allotments and incurred additional charges for roaming, data, texting and airtime.

Since the Bill Shock agreement is universal for all wireless service providers in the United States, it alone won’t give any one provider an advantage, but extending the principle of transparency and empowering customers to manage their own accounts proactively could be the new high ground for these providers to win back the hearts of their customers.

At Convergys, we help wireless service providers anticipate customer needs through our solutions. We weave interactivity and self-care into our solutions to ensure that communications between customer and service provider are real time and drive true customer satisfaction. As self-care and other customer-interactive tools are brought to market in the United States, it just might be that the most profitable wireless service provider will also be the most admired, and perhaps even loved. For these providers, that would be a welcome change indeed.

Greg Coogan is a senior marketing manager, telecom at Convergys Corporation, a global leader in providing Smart Revenue Solutions for the telecoms, cable, satellite, broadband, and utilities markets.