Lucas Skoczkowski: Operators that have moved to a converged billing platform, replacing their legacy postpaid billing platforms with next-generation solutions, are able to offer real-time promotional campaigns, improved customer care and hybrid payment options. The results in greater levels of customer satisfaction and, of course, reduced churn. Retaining and developing existing customers provides the foundation from which to grow new business.
With a phased implementation, which part came first and how long will the rollout of the entire project take?
Vasi: We are very conscious on making sure that first and foremost our customers do not experience any disruption to their service throughout the transformation. To do this we have engaged groups from across the business, including customer care, marketing and billing operations, to ensure complete alignment.
The transformation of postpaid will also certainly see a move beyond flat-rate billing and will enable DST to have access to intelligent information on bandwidth and usage at certain times of the day. This can then be used to create new campaigns. The next step will be to see how we can expand the benefits to all of our customers.
Skoczkowski: All operators in the Asia-Pacific region face a similar challenge - which is to keep customers satisfied while not worrying about the backend. But transformation is not something providers should be scared of. Operators are continually transforming to meet customer needs and remain competitive. We work closely with our AsiaPacific customers to work out their primary need and help them put in place a staged approach that the customers will be entirely unaware of. Implementing TCB has empowered DST with real-time access to subscriber data and analytics which lets them both cross-sell and up-sell.
What are the benefits for your subscribers?
Vasi: Increased control and visibility are the big bonuses to customers. For example, online and mobile games have a variety of billing options that come with them. Some are zero-rated, some have a flat-rate fee, paid by PayPal or direct debit, some through operator billing. We needed a system with the flexibility to cope with this variety, one which offered more visibility as well as a reduced cost of ownership.
Flat-rate billing is sometimes taken as the easy option, with many operators using it because their competitors do. DST's aim is to eventually offer fully-converged billing across all aspects of our business.
Skoczkowski: DST will be able to offer more targeted promotions and new services that will drive increased customer loyalty and revenues – the key to growth in the rapidly-expanding Asia-Pacific mobile telecom marketplace. Next-generation mobile services require operators to be in full charge of subscriber data to provide subscribers with tangible benefits.