Billing Output is for telecom billing professionals who need meaningful and actionable information to reduce print fulfillment costs, increase efficiency, improve customer experience and expedite the revenue collection process.
This year's program has three themes: first, cover the latest technologies and know-how on traditional print statement production, presentation and mailing distribution; second, help CSPs transition to all electronic billing - how, what works, and what doesn't; and finally, enable marketing to leverage the statement to promote today's complex products and communications services.
The agenda is outstanding. Service providers from all industry segments will present pragmatic, case-driven sessions. Industry veterans from the vendor and consulting community will lead education sessions and round-table discussions on mailing regulation updates, trans-promo, outsourced vendor management, statement design, payment preferences, and much more.
Take advantage of our "2 for 1" pricing that starts at $895.
Billing Output 2009 – Agenda
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
8:00
Registration Opens
9:00-9:30
Opening Remarks - Top Challenges Facing the Billing Output Community and Conference Overview.
Matthew Lucas, Program Chair and Vice President, TeleStrategies
9:30-10:15
Increasing Customer Adoption of E-Billing and Suppression of Paper Bills: A Case Study
Verizon has had greater success today in getting its customers to transition to electronic billing and payment. Importantly, they've also realized great success in getting those customers electing to receive their bills electronically to turn off their paper bills. Verizon's director of electronic remittance will discuss how they got to where they are, challenges they faced, what's worked and what hasn't, next steps and Verizon's Go Green initiatives and its impact.
Angeline DePauw, Director of Electronic Remittance, Verizon
10:15-10:45
Morning Break and Exhibits
10:45-11:30
Payment Radar - Knowing When the Check is Really "In the Mail"
By using a special barcode on remittance and other print correspondence, Comcast is able to track their mail on a piece by piece basis through the USPS system. This session will present a case study of how Comcast uses that tracking data to improve a range of business processes, including: eliminating unnecessary collection efforts (e.g., past due notices, service interruptions, collections calls); ensuring delivery of key mail correspondence; increasing overall customer satisfaction and retention via individualized customer care and knowledge; improving cashflow projection based on knowledge of inbound payments; minimizing fulfillment re-issue costs; increasing effectiveness of marketing campaigns by coordinating follow-up calls with mail piece delivery, and other benefits.
Julie Behm, Executive Director, Project Management, CSG
Jonathan Johanson, Business Performance Manager, Comcast
11:30 - 12:15
Online Invoicing -- the Center of an eService Solution
Billing is a telco's best opportunity to draw end-users to eService solutions. However, consolidating billing across business lines and presenting a single invoice/statement to the customer, independent of the actual billing structure/implementation, remains elusive to most telcos. This session focuses on AT&T's eService strategy to effectively address service bundling, electronic stapling and bill consolidation, as well as how each fits within a multi-product service offering. Learn insights into AT&T's online billing and reporting tools, cost savings and how eBilling fits into a broader eService strategy.
John Cushman, Vice President, AT&T
12:15 - 1:15
Lunch Break and Exhibits
1:15-2:00
Market Update: Consumer Bill Payment Trends
Consumer preferences regarding when, where and how they receive and pay their bills are evolving as quickly as the technologies that make payments possible. In order to stay ahead of the curve, telecommunications companies must understand their customer's bill payment habits and the motivations behind them. This session will present the latest research into factors that determine bill payment activity -- from individual financial ideals to regional demographics. The speaker will compare and contrast habits of customers who pay bills directly at company websites versus those that prefer to pay at bank sites as well as to those that continue to rely on the paper check. Cross-industry case studies of companies that have taken action to promote or improve their electronic billing and payment service will be presented, and telcos will learn how to leverage this consumer research to create a successful e-bill adoption program, develop in-product features to promote paper suppression, and promote bill payment at bank websites.
Patrick Howard, Director of Marketing, Checkfree
Tonya Holody, Product Marketing Manager for E-Biller Services, Checkfree
2:00-2:45
Build, Buy, or Buddy? Trials and Triumphs of a Spin-off
When Embarq found itself as a spin-off of Sprint Nextel, they had some decisions to make about their print provider. Become a customer of what was once their in-house solution? Partner? Outsource? With local and long-distance home phone service, high-speed Internet, wireless and satellite TV services bundled on one bill for 6.3 million subscribers across 18 states, they had a serious challenge. Hear Embarq's perspective about the trials, triumphs and lessons-learned of migrating from an in-house solution to an outsourced model; overcoming systems integration challenges; and successfully managing their vendor partner to meet reliability, quality and on-time performance metrics.
Steve Furgason, Vice President Revenue Management, Embarq
Tim Ross, Vice President Sales, DST Output
2:45-3:00
Afternoon Break
3:00-3:45
Intelligent Mail: What Telcos Need to Know for 2009
The United States Postal Service will introduce sweeping regulation changes in May 2009 with the implementation of Intelligent Mail barcodes. This session will provide first-hand information about Intelligent Mail options (full service versus basic), impacts to systems and processes, and potential benefits/pitfalls of the program. In addition, other relevant postal address quality initiatives will be covered, as well as how the USPS will be able to monitor compliance.
Mury Salls, SVP DST Mailing Services and President, Major Mailer Association
3:45-5:00
Service Provider Roundtable
Join a distinguished panel of senior billing output executives from leading communications service providers as they discuss the challenges to print and electronic fulfillment facing today's communications services marketplace. Topics to be addressed include: trans-promo, driving adoption of electronic statements, streamlining the print fulfillment process, outsource vendor management, statement design initiatives, postal challenges, and other issues raised throughout the first day of the conference. The session format is completely interactive so come prepared with the questions you need answers to.
Angeline DePauw, Director of Electronic Remittance, Verizon
Mike Flematti, Billing & Revenue Assurance Manager, Hargray Communication
Mary Mattingly, Process Specialist, Embarq
William Chan, Billing Manager, Broadview Networks
Laurinda Pang, Vice President, Customer Experience Re-Engineering, Global Crossing
5:00-6:00
Reception
Thursday, January 22, 2009
8:45 - 9:30
Transactional Documents and Promotions -- What Telcos Can Learn from Direct Marketers
From regulatory messages to marketing pitches, telecoms are discovering the value of moving messages from inserts and direct mail onto their billing statements. And while much has been written about the potential of variable messaging on transactional documents, the actual implementation is proving trickier than many companies anticipate. Luckily, direct marketers can teach service providers a thing or two about the challenges of delivering highly targeted, variable messaging on their statements specifically as they relate to list management, message testing and campaign management. This session will present best practices and proven list management and testing techniques used by database marketing professionals that telcos can use to implement effective trans-promotion capabilities across their billing segments, while guarantying maximum marketing impact with no interruption to the billing cycle.
Josh Wendroff, Product Marketing Manager, Regulus Group
9:30 - 10:15
Lessons Learned From the Great Statement Project
What makes a great statement or bill? What's missing on a lousy one? Can it be quantified? This session will present the latest research sponsored by the Canada Post Corporation, who commissioned the industry's largest quantitative examination of informational quality of consumer statements and bills across North America and Europe. Surprisingly (or not) the study found that typical statements hit only 53% of the key design metrics. The presenter, a leading authority on proper statement design and co-author of the report, will discuss what they discovered; how telcos can evaluate their statements based on the measurement system; and present what steps to take if you too find yourself in the 50% range.
William Broddy edp, Principal, IMERGE Consulting
10:15 - 10:30
Morning Break
10:30 - 11:15
Using Full Color to Target and Promote New Offers, Cross-sell Services and Build Customer Loyalty
Customer statements can be a powerful marketing tool. But to maximize customer communications, you need to take advantage of targeted, one-to-one print and electronic technology by combining transactional record information with full color promotional messages. The speakers will present how to use full color print to facilitate corporate branding and build customer loyalty. Find out how you can use your data to personalize your promotions and match existing customers with offers that are most likely to trigger their response by utilizing the white space on your statements to deliver specific messages relevant to their buying patterns and preferences.
William Chan, Billing Manager, Broadview Networks
Denise M. Flihan, National Account Manager, Cathedral Corporation
Patrick J. Dochety, National Account Manager, Cathedral Corporation
11:15 - 12:15
Round Table Sessions
Experts from the program and the billing industry will moderate two, thirty minute round-table workshops. This format is your opportunity to collaborate with your peers on best practices, real experiences and pitfalls for the challenges facing billing output operations. Specific roundtable sessions include:
For sponsorship and/or exhibiting information please contact Jeanette Townsend (jtownsend@telestrategies.com)