CSPs accelerating digital investment and making bills more effective

July 16, 2020 - PRLog -- New research from leading B2B telecoms analyst firm Omnisperience and digital bill communications and analytics specialists Soft-ex reveals 84% of communications service providers (CSPs) will invest in more effective customer communications in the next 2 years.

As life begins to normalise after the COVID-19 pandemic, CSPs are focusing on what comes next. They are facing two pressing needs:

1.     Helping customers understand and regain control of spending. Business customers need to analyse what they bought during the crisis phase, optimise their spending and get OPEX back under control. Consumers and SMEs are facing financial pressure and need to review their spending or renegotiate payments. Transforming static bills into interactive, personalised and dynamic digital communications enables CSPs to meet such customer expectations.

2.     Supporting innovation and digitalisation. A whole range of exciting new services are set to be rolled out. But there's a sting in the tail of innovation. If bills don't clearly explain the charges for new and unfamiliar services, as well as the effect of more frequent changes, confused customers will ring call centres, raising costs.

"During the COVID-19 crisis, businesses bought whatever they needed to keep the lights on," says Teresa Cottam, Chief Analyst at Omnisperience. "CSPs have a vital role to play in helping customers get OPEX under control by providing critical insights into their ICT spending."

This is a pressing issue because legacy bills often aren't clear or don't provide all the information customers need. 75% of respondents to Omnisperience's research admitted customers were contacting overworked call centres because they didn't understand their current bills.

"CSPs have spent billions transforming their operations, but this key piece of the puzzle – bill communications – has been overlooked despite bills being one of the most important touchpoints with customers," says Soft-ex's Grainne Magfhloinn.

CSPs are committed to doing better - 75% said COVID-19 has speeded up digitalisation efforts, with 84% revealing they intend to invest in more effective communication of charges.

This is great news for customers, CSPs and their staff, according to Cottam. "Better bill communications is the foundation of successful digital service provision and healthy customer relationships. It creates a virtuous circle of happier customers, lower support costs and more fulfilled staff who spend less time fire-fighting and more time enhancing the experience," she says.

Magfhloinn agrees: "CSPs have known they need to fix this for a long time, but they've had so much to do that it kept slipping off their to-do list. Now they're facing huge and continual changes in their commercial relationships and they know they cannot delay improving their bill communications any longer".

https://omnisperience.com/media-centre/press-releases/csps-accelerating-spend-on-digital-increasing-investment-on-bill-communications/