SWBT New Billing Services for Companies
Source Date:Feb 20, 1992
Those bulky paper bills large business customers receive from SWBT could be replaced by a single floppy disk. A trial of Bill Plus* service begins this week with 12 customers. Cramming all that billing information often filling several hundred pages_______On one diskette is a welcome change for many customers, said Kathy Stoplos, manager-systems support.
"In researching customer billing needs, we discovered that some customers spend hours and in some cases days, manually keying our billing information into their computers,"
Stoplos said.
"Bill Plus completely automates that function."
SWBT plans to file tariffs for Bill Plus after the trial results are evaluated. Customers using the system would pay a fee to establish the service, which includes necessary software developed by the customer services support group in the information systems department.
The software will provide customers with several useful features, said Laura Craver, area manager-finance customer service.
"It will allow them to graphic analyses and historical trending,"
(whats this? BELL pushing their version of a graphics report program in the form of a new service?? gimme a break! wonder how much you have to pay for that software...ed.) Craver said.
"It also enables them to export the data to a different file."
For SWBT, Bill Plus will cut postage costs. A traditional 250-300-page paper bill for a large business customer costs around $6 to mail. Since all that information can fit on one Bill Plus diskette, the mailing cost drops to 98 cents.(Once again we see what bell's real goal is.. to save more money! they make so much off consumers you would think they could afford to pay a lousy $6 to mail the bill..ed.)
Bell also introduces another new billing service EDI.
Imagine receiving a phone bill so big that it comes in a box instead of an envelope. That's the case for many large business customers. But SWBT is trying to make the delivery of those bills less cumbersome. One method is Bill Plus* service. Another is Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), which allows SWBT to transmit the billing information directly to the customer's computer.(I see possibilities here...ed.) Requirements are a communications link and translation software supporting national standards.
"With EDI, the larger the scale, the greater the benefits,"
said Bernie Ralph, systems specialist.
"You do away with the paper bill. The billing information instead goes right into the customers' accounts payable."
(At least eliminating the paper bill will help the environment. ed.) SWBT is now testing EDI with eight large business customers. During the trial, the telco is working with national standards groups who will decide exactly what the electronic phone bill will look like.
"All of this is geared to speeding up the bill delivery process, and so far, the trial customers are satisfied,"
Ralph said
"In fact, several of them have increased the number of accounts since we started."
AT&T, one of those customers, started the trial with about 70 accounts transmitted via EDI. Now they're up to over 3,000 accounts.
Like Bill Plus, EDI offers benefits for both customers and SWBT, Ralph said.
"For us, it reduces paper handling and postage. It also gets the bill to the customer faster and thus, we can get paid faster."
EDI is expected to move out of the trial stage and into full production status by the middle of this year.
