During the pandemic, the function Managed Service Providers (MSPs) serve for business customers has changed significantly. If prior to Covid, enterprises would purchase full turnkey solutions from telco or traditional Service Providers, the massive transition to UC platforms like Teams or Zoom meant that full turnkey UCaaS solutions can now be provided by MSPs directly.
Along with the great new opportunities that come with this expansion in the role of MSPs, there's also one key challenge emerging: billing.
Offering more diverse and comprehensive services also means a more complex and less homogenous bill. This requires agile billing systems that will allow MSPs to bill customers accurately, as well as provide them with drill-down self-serve analytics to help make sure they deliver an excellent voice infrastructure and easily identify any quality issues.
So, why is the bill so critical, and how can MSPs use it in both their and their customers' favor?
A Powerful Customer Touchpoint
"Effective MSP bill communications has been often overlooked despite bills being one of the most important touchpoints with customers," explains Ian Lindsay, SVP Sales at Soft-ex.
First, the bill is an important customer communication tool in that it allows to properly explain to the customer what they're paying for, making them more content and loyal.
"Enterprise customers need to understand their spending on new and unfamiliar services, as well as the effect of more frequent changes to packages," Lindsay notes.
"If bills don’t clearly explain this, confused customers will be irate and more likely to churn. However, if MSPs engage their customers more online via a simplified, easy to understand, personalised bill, it will make them less likely to churn."
The bill can also function as a positive communication, not to mention revenue-generating tool.
"The bill is the one thing that the customer will definitely read, so MSPs might as well use it as a way to communicate updates to their customers. For example, letting them know that by going paperless they will win a reward, or informing them about a new service launch that is relevant to them"
"To take this a bit further, this can then turn the digital bill into a revenue generation tool for upselling and cross selling," he adds.
