BT is trying to strengthen its grip on business customers by
offering them Web-based call tracking and payment schemes.
The company will soon launch a series of online billing plans for
business customers, based on those it already offers consumers
through the BT Together service.
Geoff Payne, head of billing systems for BT retail said the
business move was part of the central drive towards transaction
automation. "The idea is to move our customers into an
e-relationship," he said.
He would not quantify the savings the BT hoped to make with online
billing, but analyst group Gartner said a company of BT's size
could save millions of pounds a year.
The new BT system is based on an application developed by US-based
edocs. Edocs' software is Java-based and runs on "all flavours of
Unix and NT", the company said. The application plugs into back-end
systems and uses existing security without the need to build a
separate security infrastructure.
It allows customers to analyse phone bills on the Web and check who
gets called the most and when. It also allows customers to replace
phone numbers on bills with the names of people and businesses
called.
BT and edocs see this as a key feature that will reduce customer
churn. "You are not likely to switch phone companies if you have
just spent three months building up your address book," said edocs
vice-president of marketing Ted Morgan.
Paul Fegan, chairman of the Communications Management Association's
(CMA) billing special interest group, told CW360.com: "What BT is
doing is providing a range of options for its users and that can
not be a bad thing, although it's long overdue.
"But there are similar schemes offering electronic analysis
available from other telcos, and users need to evaluate the best
ones on offer."
The CMA has made the issue of billing a key area for its members,
claiming that a large percentage of paper bills received by
companies contain errors - including wrong amounts - and are
difficult to understand.
The Association's "Billing for Business" initiative includes a Web
facility to allow users to compare the billing procedures of
telcos.