No Need to Be (Bill) Shocked

When was the last time you actually picked up the phone to your service provider to check your mobile phone usage and whether your current pricing scheme fits your usage? If you’re anything like me, the answer is never. But I do love browsing around my service provider’s retail store and checking out the latest devices. During several visits the agent has suggested taking a look at my voice or data plan, so over the years I’ve managed to reduce the costs. The fact that my family then negates the savings by wanting additional services and apps is a different issue (OK, I’m more the culprit here).

Given that I’ve been in the industry for more years than I care to remember and yet still have just a vague idea as to how much data I’m consuming and what I’m paying for it (at least until the bill comes), it’s no surprise that the Federal Communications Commission recently reported that they’ve “gotten hundreds of complaints about bill shock” (although to put things into perspective, this is but a tiny fraction of 285 million mobile phone users in the U.S.). Nevertheless, as Joel Gurin, chief of the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau correctly pointed out: “Avoiding bill shock is good for consumers and ultimately good business for wireless carriers as well.”

Many service providers are offering tools to help their customers manage their usage – and their bills – better. Several service providers have introduced data usage estimator tools on their websites. And others have put in place “bill estimator” tools that illustrate the impact of new activations and price-plan changes on the bill (in particular to explain the pro-ration calculations). There’s a good reason for this: It helps reduce customer churn and costly calls to the call center. A customer who only belatedly discovers he was charged for something he felt came in the package is more likely to call and eventually churn than a customer who feels he is in control of his bill. And by proactively informing a customer of both their usage patterns and ways to shape their package in a more cost-efficient manner, service providers are building customer loyalty. On top of this, by making usage and billing information more available to customers through the Web and smartphones, service providers are trailblazing a path for additional personalization and self care; again enhancing value and deflecting costly care interactions.

In Europe, the regulator has told service providers to roll out text messaging services to inform consumers when they are running up roaming charges or getting close to a set limit for data roaming. Interestingly, aside from preventing bill shock, these alerts also provide an opportunity for upsell, offering service providers the chance to promote relevant special discounts or personalized packages to these consumers. Check out the hot new space of contextual marketing — service providers are ideally positioned for this kind of mass personalization of marketing offers and several have driven significant ARPU lift and churn reduction from the practice.

Thanks to the fact that the technology is there to help service providers help their customers to manage their usage, bill shock is likely to become a relic of the past. Not only will this mean happier consumers, it will also mean more confident consumers, ready to embrace new services because they will be able to know, in real time, how this service translates into data volume and how it impacts their bill.

Mike Couture is vice president of Amdocs, where he leads the company’s global team of marketing professionals in the areas of market research and insight, product marketing, marketing communications, corporate marketing, regional marketing and account-based marketing.