Solutions
Bill Shock Management
Bill Shock Management
Overview
The rapid increase in the consumption of mobile data services, coupled with subscribers’ changing usage patterns and introduction of ‘per MegaByte’ pricing has led to the phenomenon of ‘Bill Shock’. Bill shock is the negative reaction of subscribers when they receive unexpectedly large bills for their service usage, with no prior knowledge or warning of the scale of the charges, they may incur.
The extent of the problem has led the European Commission to extend its current roaming cost reduction legislation to cover mobile data roaming charges and include bill shock management for data services in addition to traditional voice and text services. Under this legislation, service providers will be legally obliged to:
The US telecom regulator, FCC has also proposed rules to avoid ‘bill shock’ for end users. After an extensive customer survey, it has issued a proposal, which when passed, will require operators to send alerts to customers, when they are about to reach their monthly usage limit of voice and data and also alert them if they are going to incur roaming charges not covered by their monthly plans. The rules also require operators to provide customers with tools to manage their usage limits and balances.
Volubill’s Bill Shock Management solution, based on its proven policy management and service control technology enables service providers to:
FIGURE 1 - Bill Shock Management Notification and Self-care Samples
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The rapid increase in the consumption of mobile data services, coupled with subscribers’ changing usage patterns and introduction of ‘per MegaByte’ pricing has led to the phenomenon of ‘Bill Shock’. Bill shock is the negative reaction of subscribers when they receive unexpectedly large bills for their service usage, with no prior knowledge or warning of the scale of the charges, they may incur.
The extent of the problem has led the European Commission to extend its current roaming cost reduction legislation to cover mobile data roaming charges and include bill shock management for data services in addition to traditional voice and text services. Under this legislation, service providers will be legally obliged to:
- Reduce maximum wholesale prices for data roaming from €0.8/MB to €0.5/MB.
- Inform a roaming subscriber of the cost of using data services on their network.
- Enable the subscriber to set a roaming spending limit every time he or she enters a new country.
- Automatically cut off the services to the subscriber, when his or her usage charges have reached €50 (or equivalent), unless the subscriber has set a higher spending limit.
The US telecom regulator, FCC has also proposed rules to avoid ‘bill shock’ for end users. After an extensive customer survey, it has issued a proposal, which when passed, will require operators to send alerts to customers, when they are about to reach their monthly usage limit of voice and data and also alert them if they are going to incur roaming charges not covered by their monthly plans. The rules also require operators to provide customers with tools to manage their usage limits and balances.
Volubill’s Bill Shock Management solution, based on its proven policy management and service control technology enables service providers to:
- Fully comply with regulation and eliminate ‘Bill Shock’ by enforcing spending or credit limits in real-time, by dynamically allowing and blocking access to data services for each subscriber, based on his or her profile, spending limits and service usage.
- Maintain a rich real-time dialogue with customers through SMS, MMS, email and captive portals in order to keep them informed about data usage charges, current spend and remaining quota.
- Offer subscribers the ability to personalise and control their spending limits for data services on service level and to match their travel plan, budget using self care and mobile self care.
- Offer subscribers the ability to increase their quota if they reach their spending limit, or redirect them to a top-up page that enables them to switch over to an alternative payment method.
- Offer more targeted and personalised service policies instead of generic ‘per MB’ rates, in order to encourage data usage in home and roaming network. This can be achieved by segmenting current data services by factors such as managed applications (e.g. M2M, VoIP, VoD), payment method, location, device type, network type and customer application preferences (e.g. On Demand performance of online gaming, Internet, VoIP and video conferencing etc.).
FIGURE 1 - Bill Shock Management Notification and Self-care Samples
Architecture »
Benefits »
Solution Roadmap »
