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Television, the world's most powerful entertainment medium is being transformed by the Internet revolution. The promise of millions of personalised on-demand programmes is now becoming a reality around the world, enticing new consumer usage and creating important new revenue streams. This is stimulating increased competition as telecommunication operators enter a market traditionally occupied by cable and satellite companies, bringing with it more choice, convenience and control.  Key to capturing this moment of revenue opportunity is the billing and customer care system, equipping operators with the tools for success-real-time financial management control and a wealth of customer profile data.

IPTV is top of the agenda for many telecommunications operators who wish to reap the vast financial rewards on offer. Analyst firm Infonetics Research predict that the number of IPTV subscribers will reach a staggering 53 mn by 2009 and its respective revenue to surge to $6 bn for equipment and $38 bn for services. Obtaining and retaining these new subscribers is a key priority, and traditional telcos with their existing consumer databases are in a prime position to succeed.

Like any new competitive market, incumbent cable and satellite TV providers are also putting up a fight.  With providers in Asia, the US and elsewhere responding by adding Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), video-on-demand, content, games and other services to their current video and Internet offer.  In order to compete with incumbent providers, time-to-market will be critical for new entrants. But to win and retain customers, operators must not just be first to market they must also have an infrastructure to deliver the best customer experience.

Firm Billing Foundations = Future Success
One of the major challenges telecommunications operators face is whether their billing systems can support the demands of these new services and the new marketing models they require. Many operators around the globe today are faced with legacy billing systems that are simply not up to the challenge of supporting the new types of services and innovative bundles that will be required to drive industry growth.

The majority of these legacy billing and customer care systems work in silos and cannot easily communicate with applications that handle other aspects of the customer lifecycle. In other words, there are too many “moving parts” that prevent a seamless transition from one process to another. Without a seamless communication between billing, customer care, ordering and other systems, operators face a roadblock of meeting their new IPTV business objectives.

Quite simply, operators cannot overlook the importance of billing accuracy across all of the available services in the convergent world. 

Billing for multi-channel video services requires technologies that support usage and event based billing as well as flat rate subscription billing.  The system should also provide a full range of discounting options such as new customer introductory offers and incentives for existing subscribers, as well as a full range of payment options such as prepaid, pay now and postpaid. In addition, cross product packaging and bundling capabilities are particularly important to promote the additional services of voice and data.

By implementing one billing system, operators can obtain a 'single source of truth'-providing a plethora of customer information and management capabilities, lowering cost of ownership and enabling the effective discounting and bundling of services (mobile, fixed, data and TV)-as well as clearly displaying all these services on one bill.

Customer, The King
IPTV opens up a wealth of new services for the consumer, from video-on-demand, to video choices based on personal interests to movies on the go. This places new demands on back-office systems which must be addressed in order to achieve a high quality of service and a profitable business.

As operators expand into multiple lines of business, they must resist the temptation to align their back-office systems in a way that separates their customers, accordingly to what type of service they use or their payment method.

In essence all platforms throughout the service provider's infrastructure must have access to the customer-their account, network and equipment information-in order to qualify orders and deliver the correct services. Operators must be able to track, manage and realize all the revenue obtained from every transaction in order to maximize profit.

By storing customer data within one customer care and billing system, it can be leveraged by all aspects of an organization and, more importantly support the customer with the best service possible. A single platform enables operators to obtain a “holistic view” of the individual-this is critical as operators increasingly deliver more personalised convergent offerings which require a sophisticated understanding of a customers preferences and interests.

Providing Real-time Experience
An excellent customer experience can't stop when a customer turns off the television and places a call to their service provider, or decides to order new services through the set-top box. Extending high quality customer service through every channel available-the call center, set-top box, Internet or mobile device is critical to success.

Real-time customer care capabilities are particularly important in an on-demand environment. For example, with on-demand video services, a call centre representative needs to know immediately when there is an issue with an on-demand order so that they are empowered to fix the problem for a customer.

By seamlessly integrating all of the back-office systems, details of customer accounts, changes, financial status or technical problems can be shared with every part of the customer service chain.  This becomes even more crucial when dealing with customers who have multiple services (such as mobile, fixed, data and TV) where an effective work order management system becomes essential for the regular servicing of equipment.

Empowered by the immediacy of the Internet, consumers want real time access to their account information, be able to track and manage the expenditure of their family and even monitor the amount of time their children spend on playing video games.

With real-time systems operators can put control back into the hands of the consumer, enabling them to assess their account status in real-time, pay-bills by whichever means they wish (by subscription, in real-time or at a future date), maintain their account information and upgrade services without the need to contact a call centre.

For IPTV to become an on-going commercial success, operators must be able to tap into the massive advertising opportunity IPTV provides and create smarter and more compelling marketing/advertising campaigns.

Making It Last
Operators who embrace the convergent world of communications and succeed in delivering compelling and competitive IPTV offerings will reap the rewards.  

Armed with the business critical tool of a single, integrated billing and customer care system, they will be poised to capture the market and continue to deliver-bundling services together, offering tailored content based on individual interests, and most importantly delivering an exceptional customer service.

The end result will be not only streamlined back office systems that enable the effective delivery tracking and billing of services, but ultimately improve the customer experience and best of all create long last customer loyalty.

Raghav Sahgal
chief business officer, Converged Billing Group, Comverse
vadmail@cybermedia.co.in

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