IN@Voice Convergent Billing System, Solution for Telecom Business Expansion
The modern world is always changing, with new requirements for the range of services and the quality of digital services. Today, subscribers see the telecom operator as a single point of purchase for all kinds of digital services, which requires high flexibility. In order to remain competitive in the market and increase business profitability, operators need to regularly maintain and satisfy the end user’s demand. In other words, a telecom operator must be able to provide maximum opportunities immediately, regardless of circumstances and subscriber’s intended activities.
Digital products and services providers shared on Accenture telephone survey that the most common factors inhibiting agility in creating and delivering new services are infrastructure limitations, particularly the billing system capacity.
60 % of respondents name a convergent billing system (a single billing system for all services provided) as a key condition for the development of telecom business in a highly competitive and volatile market.
“The IN@Voice Bercut Convergent billing system is a complex Business Support System / Operation Support System (BSS/OSS) solution. IN@Voice supports charging of services, stores information about subscribers, tariff plans and services, processes numerous transactions associated with billing and charging, and facilitates mutual settlements with partners and service providers.”
Bercut partners are major integrated providers of digital products and services, servicing millions of users every day. Due to this, the solution is primarily aimed at Tier 2 and Tier 1 service providers operating within the triple-play and quad-play concepts. However, the IN@Voice modular architecture allows offering the proper configuration and implementing a unique billing delivery to meet the needs of Tier 3 and Tier 4 service providers, which makes it a universal solution for operators of various tiers.
IN@Voice is incorporated into the operator’s IT environment, supports existing integrations and includes a set of additional modules. BSSs construct a scope of services around the core, i.e. the billing system.
The Bercut billing system is a high-load, scalable solution that can support all types of convergent operator offerings.
With IN@Voice, providers segment the subscribers, select optimal plans and tailored offers for a specific segment, create unique popular services, such as extra packages of minutes and GBs (when the main is used up), rollover/exchange and sale of unused traffic, group discounts for subscribers, and many others.
Tariff Plan Construction Kit
One of the benefits of the IN@Voice Bercut billing system is the tariff constructor feature, i.e. the option to charge for mobile communication services, broadband Internet access, digital services of the operator and its partners in a single tariff plan.
Tariff Plan Construction Kit covers the needs of different segments of the target audience and allows one to expand the ecosystem of digital products provided to a subscriber in one tariff plan. The system enables configuring various dependencies using AI.
AI aggregates subscriber data, which is then incorporated into the selection of an optimal offer. Based on a number of characteristics (gender, age, consumption, subscriber’s region, and others), the operator can form a CJM and hypothesize what actions the subscriber will take in the future.
How AI can be used?
Let’s imagine that the subscriber used a number of services within the tariff plan for 6 months. Having analyzed the subscriber’s behavior model, the system identified a number of regularities that suggest that the subscriber needs more data traffic and less voice traffic. The operator offers to switch to a more suitable plan. The parameters to determine the optimal tariff offer can be customized. This way, the operator is able to analyze the subscriber’s monthly expenses for communication services, the frequency of top-ups, and which services are activated more often. Using the existing subscribers’ behavior model, you can develop offers for new customers. Based on the same characteristics, the billing system analyzes the segment of the new subscriber and selects a tariff plan developed for this specific segment.
Case: A new subscriber is a student living in a certain place. The operator can offer them a set of useful unlimited services, 15 GBs and 300 SMS at the best price, considering the average market price in the ‘students’ segment.
AI can be used not only to customize offers, but also to assess the overall efficiency of the operator’s business processes. Using AI, you can segment the subscriber base, forecast revenue, predict churn, and also build a long-term strategy based on the forecasts.
The architecture of the IN@Voice Bercut convergent billing system includes a user-friendly web interface for easy service sales and Business API. With API, you can attach any external application (personal web profile or mobile app) to the billing system to facilitate communication with the subscriber. The ability to select and independently connect operator services via a user-friendly mobile app will enhance the customer experience and have a positive impact on the subscriber loyalty. Bercut’s proprietary Policy and Charging Rules Function within BSS ensures QoS management.
Operator’s promptness and flexibility
For those demanding fast results, BSS/OSS Bercut offers an intelligent platform that enables a quick deployment of existing telecom products on the operator’s networks. The feature of custom improvements to the billing system will open up additional room for the operator’s flexibility.
Having more customization points, an operator can change its business processes in-house without engaging a vendor. Recently, one of Bercut’s partners commented in the media on how they used this feature:
“A few years ago, the operator introduced a product that was quite incredible at the moment — the exchange of resources. Both standard billing system capacities and in-house solutions were used in the development. This had revolutionized the market. Many companies wanted to replicate this digital practice of giving their subscribers the option to manage their own minutes, gigabytes and SMS in real time, as well as create customized plans. Yet, for a long period the operator remained the only provider to have such an innovative product.”
“This case is not the only example of the one-of-a-kind product launched on the basis of the IN@Voice billing system. We are willing to share details about each of them, and how the custom options and the open source code of the solution allow operators to use Bercut’s solutions to generate new products and services,” said Daniil Fedotov, Product Manager of IN@Voice Bercut.
Look ahead and anticipate the expectations of your most demanding and advanced subscribers with the IN@Voice Bercut convergent billing system.