Why You Need to Attend

Conference Agenda

THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2007

Secrets of Running a Smooth Billing Output Operation, or How to Justify Your Job Everyday
While many service providers today have chosen to outsource their billing output requirements, Alltel, with more than 11 million wireless customers insources all of its billing output needs. Twice in the last five years, the Alltel Output Processing Center has successfully defended the decision to keep everything in house. Learn how Alltel continues to successfully insource its billing output requirements and how you too can justify your job and your insourcing decision to upper management.

John Carter, General Manager, Alltel Output Processing Services
 

Is Your Bill Designed to Deliver?
What common flaw in bill-design causes thousands of phone calls to communications companies every month? The answer may surprise you. Learn bill design best practices based on over 30 focus groups conducted nationwide. See several real-life before and after examples that boast as much as a 50% reduction in billing-related call volume and hear about Time Warner Cable’s own effort to redesign its bill. In attending this session you will learn how you can refine your bill to improve clarity and customer satisfaction, while at the same time increasing your up-sell capabilities.

Mike Mitchell, Director of MIS, Time Warner Cable
Laura Dean, Director of Marketing & Product Management, ComTec, Inc.
 

Future USPS Technology and Pricing Trends - How They Impact Your Business
In an effort to ensure that all mail can be uniquely identified and tracked, the United States Postal Service has deployed technology that provides value-added mail tracking services to postal customers and improves overall mail service. The newly released 4-state Customer Barcode as an alternative to their current Confirm®, Planet Code® and Address Change Service products will have enormous impact to mailers over the course of the next few years. Learn about these products' capabilities as well as the outcome of the 2006 USPS rate case and how to lessen the impact of any rate increases on your business.

Charles E. Bravo, Senior Vice President, Intelligent Mail and Address, United States Postal Service
Joe Moeller, Manager of Pricing, United States Postal Service
David Gorham, Manager – SPC, CSG Systems, and Board Member, Major Mailers Association
Mury Salls, Vice President, Postal Relations, DST Output, and President, Major Mailers Association
 

Lunch and Exhibits
 

1:30-2:40

Keeping up with New HVTO Technology
Today, much energy is dedicated to maximizing the design and throughput of a monthly statement. Many high-volume transactional output (HVTO) providers are overwhelmed by the vast amounts of new technology to optimize their production facilities. In this session, the speakers will discuss how HVTO providers can leverage new technology such at high-speed inserters, high-speed production printers, and in-line graphical promotions (240 dpi to 600 dpi) to more effectively produce monthly statements.

Tommy York, Director of Operations SPC Florida, CSG Systems
Pete Jones, Vertical Marketing Director, BOWE BELL + HOWELL
Eddy Edel, Director, Product Management, Pitney Bowes, Document Messaging Technologies
Tom Lee, Marketing Manager, Oce North America
 

Hitchhiker's Guide to TransPromo: Turning Monthly Statements into Sassy Sales Tools
Every month the billing systems of communications service providers turn out hundreds of thousands of bills designed to tell their customers how they used their telecom resources in the previous month and what they owe for those services. While some billers add inserts to the bills or add a bit of messaging to the bill, the truth is that those statements are one of the wasted advertising opportunities that could be driving new revenue streams and building customer loyalty. This presentation is designed to unlock the secrets behind TransPromo in the Telecom market and to look at examples of how TransPromo is the key differentiator for telecom billers around the world.

Pat McGrew, Director, Transaction Industry, Kodak Graphic Communications Group
 

The One Thing You Need to Know About Outsourcing and Probably Haven't Heard
Getting the most out of outsourcing bill production begins with a good understanding of what you are striving to accomplish. This session presents the lessons Qwest Communications learned in evaluating whether or not to outsource, how they got to a decision that outsourcing made good business sense, and what they did to assure a smooth transition. When you leave this session, you will: know the one thing that you must do to ensure success; understand ways to assess the real performance of the areas considered for outsourcing; have a good understanding about what’s needed to orchestrate a quick and effective transition; and, walk away with practical techniques on linking statement production outsourcing with desired end goals.

Mike Edris, Director, Data Center and Bill Print Operations, Qwest
Tim Ross, Vice President National Sales, Communications, DST Output
 

Why It Matters How Taxes Are Presented on the Bill
Taxes and how they are presented on the bill are a major issue that can be very costly to the service provider or customer if not done right. The speaker, an expert on telecom taxation, will discuss Truth in Billing requirements for accurately categorizing what is a tax versus a surcharge and what can be passed through and what can’t. The speaker will also address the risks billers face when trying to save real estate on their bills by listing all state and local taxes in the aggregate rather than breaking them out by jurisdiction and tax type.

Dr. Will Yancey, CPA, Independent Consultant (willyancey.com)
 

FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007

Leveraging Electronic Billing and Payment to Enhance Cash Flow
Imagine invoicing your customers without ever printing or mailing another bill. This telecommunications service providers’ dream is actually reality for VoIP provider Cbeyond. In this session, learn how the company built its business by successfully utilizing electronic billing to speed collections, enhance profitability, and better serve its 23,000 small business customers. Discussion will include: an overview of electronic billing and payment, including a comparison of adoption rates across industries; tactical methods for leveraging electronic billing to speed payment collection; best practices for telecommunications electronic bill presentment, including incorporation of cross-sell and up-sell messaging; and, small business customer preferences regarding electronic payment channels. 

Minaz Vastani, Senior Director Applications Development, Cbeyond Communications
Michelle Flint, Vice President, Group Executive, CheckFree
 

Deploying an Integrated e-Billing and e-Payment Platform
This session will review how Midcontinent Communications deployed an integrated e-billing, self-service, one-time non-enrolled e-payment and recurring EFT solution on one application platform and technology architecture. Attendees will learn the benefits of sourcing one integrated technology application for all financial relationship management activities; how to integrate and support the transition of a traditional EFT program with a self-managed e-billing application; and how to optimize your Revenue Collection Lifecycle for improved operational efficiency, customer service and competitive advantage.

Doug Schaefers, Director Enterprise Services, Midcontinent Communications Inc.
Rick Huff, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, KUBRA
 

Powerful, Personalized, Electronic eBill Insertions
One of the most compelling reasons for a 'biller direct' electronic billing strategy is the biller's requirement to keep their branding in front of the consumer, and most importantly, to promote additional products and Internet-based self-service. Email billing allows extensive, personalized marketing 'up and cross sell' opportunities. The 'push nature' of secure email billing offers several exciting marketing opportunities that are not available to paper-based or Internet-based billing offerings. This case study will look at how Plant Telecommunications is including electronic marketing insertions within their secure email bills.

David Nelson, Customer Service Manager, Plant Telecommunications
Garin Toren, COO, Striata
 

Creating Effective One-to-One Marketing Campaigns for Service Providers
Gaining greater customer loyalty and up selling products and services in an efficient manner demand a multi-channel marketing approach. This presentation will focus on ways communications service provider can develop personalized campaigns using strategic mailers by leveraging their existing customer databases. Attendees will come away from this session with knowledge of how to utilize automated tools to implement one-to-one marketing programs and respond to changing markets and competition quickly and efficiently.

Mike Wegmann, Senior Vice President, Jerome Group
 

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