I recently had the opportunity to meet with Alan Coleman, CEO of Brite:Bill to learn more about the company’s offering and its activities in Europe. Brite:Bill is 5 years old and the leaders believe that billing can be a differentiator for network operators.
Originally started as a billing design agency, Brite:Bill found that an enhanced understanding of consumer billing concerns could allow it to help network operators reduce customer care costs and provide a better billing experience for its subscribers. Statistics show that about 40% of customer care costs today are related to billing issues and in Europe this comes at a cost of between $5.42 to $7.59 per call. That figure adds up pretty quickly to create a potential category to provide incremental savings opportunities for network operators.
Based on a recent study of 1,000 U.K. residents about their billing experiences to date, the feedback should motivate network operators to take notice. Some of the key findings include:
- One-third believe their mobile operator doesn’t care about their billing issues.
- One-third of younger users (age 16-24) would like to receive billing over a variety of devices – phone, tablet, computer, etc.
- 20% of customers would be interested in receiving offers for new services that are customized to their usage.
And my personal favorite, is highlighted in the infographic below. 
Do you wonder if these billing errors would really cause a customer to churn? The following statistics were highlighted during the research:
- 17% of customers would leave their mobile operator after one customer service issue.
- 40% would leave after two issues.
- 28% would leave after three issues.
- 85% of customers state that the reason they switch providers is poor customer service.
Along with the infographic, there is also a detailed white paper available to cover research of 40 communications service providers in 12 countries on billing and customer relationship topics.
Brite:Bill announced that it has case studies today with four major providers. In Europe it has worked with Eircom, Vodafone and Tele2. Eircom wanted to reduce customer service costs and improve retention while increasing online sales. Brite:Bill allowed it to migrate from four different systems to a single one to achieve these goals. Vodafone (Ireland) was focused on solving similar challenges, only with enterprise customers. It was able to consolidate multiple feeds to a single bill, increasing customer satisfaction and reducing churn. In order for Tele2 Netherlands to provide self-care e-billing to its postpaid customers, it worked with Brite:Bill to provide real-time billing information via the Web and mobile interfaces.
Although we mainly focused on Europe with this interview, the fact that Sprint announced the use of Brite:Bill during Mobile World Congress shouldn’t be overlooked. This is a strong vote of confidence that this young company can move beyond Northern Europe for its customer base.
Alan Coleman is the founder and CEO of Brite:Bill. Before establishing the company he was alliance sales director for the products operating group in EMEA at Accenture. In this capacity he was responsible for $105.8 million of hardware and software sales. Prior to joining Accenture in 2002, Coleman held a senior business development role with Macalla Software, a technology startup. He began his career with Morgan Stanley investment bank in London and is a graduate of University College Dublin and Michael Smurfit School of Business with an undergraduate degree in computer science and a Master’s in business studies.
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Claudia Bacco, Managing Director – EMEA for RCR Wireless News, has spent her entire career in telecom, IT and security. Having experience as an operator, software and hardware vendor and as a well-known industry analyst, she has many opinions on the market. She’ll be sharing those opinions along with ongoing trend analysis for RCR Wireless News.
