Why is it important to have an intelligent cloud-based billing platform?
Particularly for advanced communications businesses, operating without an automated billing, payments, and customer management solution can inhibit growth.
In Rev.io’s 2017 survey, The Current State of Communications and IoT, 73% of companies said they’re seeing at least a 20% annual growth rate. If you’ve found the financial health of your own business suffering from revenue leakage or billing errors, then it’s time to consider other options.
When evaluating subscription billing platforms, there are several ways to separate the duds from the game-changers. To do this, look for a cloud-based billing platform that meets the following characteristics:
1. customizable platform with scalability
Adopting a new technology consumes one of your biggest resources – time. Before you make an investment, be sure to think about where your company is headed. Will you be adding a new offering? Expanding into a new market? Moving from an inside sales model to an agent model? Be sure to consider the scalability of the new software and your future company initiatives.
An intelligent cloud-based billing platform should eliminate manual processes and make it easier to grow. Look for a customizable telecommunications, Managed Services, and IoT billing platform with built-in inventory management, integrated tax calculation, and workflow automation capabilities. The leading software-as-a-service billing platforms allow you to consolidate multiple systems and provides a clear picture into your revenue and customers.
A good platform will not only meet your company’s needs but will also empower your customers. Complement your offering with a robust self-service customer portal for tracking usage, support tickets, locations, and new orders.
At Rev.io, we think of ourselves as your billing partner – rather than just another software vendor – and we’ve developed additional tools to help our clients improve satisfaction and reduce churn. By coupling our intelligent billing platform with self-enablement portals, our clients build lasting relationships with their customers and agents.
2. intelligent billing & integrated usage-rating
Subscription and pay-as-you-go pricing models have changed the way modern consumers and businesses interact. In order to stay current, telecommunications, Managed Services, and IoT businesses must incorporate usage-based offerings into their services. With the right technology, consumption-based billing becomes simple. Look for a billing, payments, and customer management platform with an established network of strategic partners and integrations; this will streamline manual processes by populating usage-rating and automating new orders, service suspensions, and disconnects. For additional usage-based billing tips, check out our 4 Considerations of Consumption-Based Pricing blog post!
In addition to facilitating usage-based pricing structures, you can identify a top-notch billing system by evaluating your billing partner’s development roadmap, ease of integration, and internal team.
Here are some questions to ask while you search for potential billing partners:
- What percentage of your revenue do you reinvest into R&D for platform enhancements?
- Do you have a REST API or other method to build new integrations?
- What methods are in place for clients to share their ideas or influence your development roadmap?
- How many enhancements were made to the platform last year?
- How many integrations have you built to third-party platforms?
- BONUS QUESTION: How can I create custom proposals in the billing platform to quote potential new customers or orders?
3. established onboarding and ongoing training programs
After spending the time to thoroughly vet a new software and deciding to implement the technology, the last thing you want is to fall short during the onboarding or training phase. Inquiring about the onboarding process can save you time and money (and possibly a huge headache). The best billing platforms have created a detailed implementation model and have knowledgeable, in-house onboarding and training teams.
When evaluating a billing partner, here are the best questions to ask about onboarding:
- Can you share with me the full onboarding plan and detailed documentation about the process?
- Will our company have an assigned, main point of contact that works with us during the entire implementation?
- Do you have technical experts to help with migrating data from our old platform?
- How will I be notified as we move through different onboarding stages?
- Who will be training our team on how to use the platform
- What’s the process for getting additional training afterwards?
- Will any of our training sessions be in person?
- BONUS QUESTION: Can I speak to two references who recently went through onboarding your platform?
For more insight on this topic, contact our team! To learn more about our sophisticated billing, payments, and customer management platform, schedule a demo today. We look forward to hearing from you!