29-Jul-2013 15:02
Can we help you?
Fairly recently a story was aired on TV and in print, reporting that a UK mobile phone customer was, incorrectly it turned out of course, sent a couple of telephone bills amounting to over £19,000.
Although the mobile provider initially confirmed the figures to be correct and insisted on full settlement, it later emerged that these crazy bills were triggered by a fault on the customer’s handset, which was in error, sending and receiving large chunks of data. Eventually Orange management saw sense & agreed to waive the bill.
In a similar incident in late 2012, a French telephone user was sent a bill for 12 quadrillion Euros (yep, there is such a number) - an amount of money totalling over 6,000 times the entire yearly economic output of France. Needless to say sanity prevailed and this bill was waived too.
However, these not uncommon episodes raise a couple of questions:
1. How many incorrect bills are actually sent out every month - bills that are too small to create waves... These may include mobile bills to private individuals for extra roaming charges, incorrect billing & add-ons that simply don’t exist etc.. Bills and extra charges that are too tiny to notice, to insignificant to query and too much hassle to chase.
2. Why aren’t mobile & home telephone providers and resellers using the detection and monitoring systems available to prevent these excess charges?
In an era when transferring telephone accounts from one provider to another, from one mobile operator to a competitor is so easy and so prevalent, why not make that extra effort & try to build lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with both your business & residential customers - and in particular, retain the trust of your SME business clients.
There is enormous potential here: 99% of European businesses, 20+ million organizations, are classified as SMEs. Ofcom has found that companies with five or more employees have an average telecom spend of nearly 20% more than the average UK household.
It makes sense to ensure tariffs are fair, service is efficient and bills are scrupulously correct, month after month…
Our staff at SimplyFone use sophisticated analytics to help identify small business customers; we then monitor usages & help structure specific SME packages, tariffs and rates to their needs, and thus not only provide additional value, but retain goodwill and garner customer loyalty.
If you are an SME and are interested in benefitting from our helpful & competitive tariffs, backed up by an agile and flexible back-office, and personalised service, SimplyFone are well positioned to develop long-term SME strategies with you, to our mutual benefit.
If interested, contact our Director Norman Feiner on 020 3191 9988.
