Billing and Customer Care - BCC
Billing and customer care is a set of functions and processes related to generating customer invoices. These generally include Event (network usage) Rating, Invoicing, and tools to establish and maintain the customer profile. Billing and customer care systems convert the transfer of bits and bytes of digital information within the network into the money that will be received by the service provider. To accomplish this, billing and customer care systems provide account activation and tracking, service feature selection, selection of billing rates for specific calls, invoice creation, payment entry and management of communication with the customer. Billing and customer care systems are the link between end users and the telecommunications network equipment. Telecommunications service providers manage networks, setup the networks to allow customers to transfer information (provisioning), and bill end users for their use of the system. Customers who need telecommunications services select carriers by evaluating service and equipment costs, reviewing the reliability of the network, and comparing how specific services (features) match their communication needs. Because most network operations have access to systems with the same technology, the billing and customer care system is one of the key methods used to differentiate one service provider from another.