Globys Research Identifies Top 5 Use Cases for Usage Reporting & Monitoring
Customer-centric invoicing improves visibility, making it easier and faster to review and submit payments. But for customers with usage-based products and services, that monthly, reactive view may not be sufficient.
For many, access to real-time usage has become table stakes on the consumer side. We can see up to the minute information on our data usage from our mobile carrier, energy consumption from our utility provider, measure car performance, and even get medical advice from wearables.
It’s become the norm to expect to get what you need – when you need it.
In talking with business users and their suppliers, that need – and growing expectation – is prevalent on the business front as well. In recent Globys surveys, asking end users to rate the importance of varying components in a digital invoicing solution, over 80% responded that access to pre-billed usage data is important to them. We’ve also seen a spike in this request in B2B RFPs – with very specific business requirements around how usage data is made available and presented or delivered.
Now circling back to the consumer experience, a lot of companies have done a really good job at making usage data super accessible and almost mindless to monitor. Visualizations show an immediate view of consumption, text alerts are automatically sent based on certain thresholds, and per-service information is easy to review on line. Fortunately, this has triggered a push for improvement on the B2B front. Unfortunately, it’s way more complex to manage.
Take a mobile carrier for example – who has thousands of customers, who in turn, have hundreds or thousands of employees with devices. Although it’s fairly simple to assume that a consumer with a 6GB plan would want to be alerted at 75% of that threshold, it’s nearly impossible for the carrier to determine what’s important for each customer, across every device and across every service.
So while some usage data has been made available for some products or services, more times than not, it’s really not that valuable to the business customer. Without a way to easily connect the dots – and automatically extract what actually matters to their business – the time it takes to manage ends up killing any potential value.
How are business customers applying usage data?
So the question is – what do business customers really want out of usage data?
Globys research shows there are five main drivers for usage data and monitoring. Opposed to monthly invoicing, which is an accounting process alone, these use cases are tied to a variety of key business objectives.
The rise of the mobile workforce has really brought usage compliance to the forefront. Companies need the ability to proactively monitor for out of compliance usage, which is then typically associated with unexpected costs on the invoice. This can also be helpful as new services are added, as often businesses – and their suppliers – are guesstimating at the uptake or consumption patterns.
Of course, cost management is something that is top of mind for all businesses. The key here is helping customers to avoid invoice shock, by providing them with a way to monitor usage based on anticipated costs. Often times, there are repeat ‘offenders’ – so knowing what they’ve done in the past 24 hours – versus waiting until months end – can have a big impact.
For services, such as toll-free numbers or call center services, customers want a data-driven process for allocating resources. If there’s a spike in one specific area, having the ability to reallocate to another area, could help avoid unanswered or lag times.
Another area that ties more into the sales and marketing realm is tracking business activity. For example, being able to see that 40% of the calls are coming into a specific location helps to determine the effectiveness of certain sales efforts or campaigns. Tracking of wait times or call durations are also key in evaluating the experience provided to customers.
The last one, spend justification, is actually one that often goes unnoticed but can have a significant impact on the customer-supplier relationship. Often times, it’s not about customers finding the ‘ahas’ or ‘gotchas’ to reduce invoice costs but just having the visibility and an efficient way to monitor usage – especially when they have hundreds or thousands of employees. This ensures businesses can minimize risk, opening the opportunity to increase the number of services with their supplier.
What’s driving the business case for the supplier?
From a supplier’s perspective, there are three key benefits that are driving the interest and investment in providing business customers with usage data and monitoring.
The first is really about building stronger, more valuable customer relationships. Referring back to the use cases outlined above, usage provides an opportunity to engage more frequently, often with a broader group within the organization, based on what’s important to each customer.
This in turn, creates a level of business value that doesn’t exist with the products or services alone. Customers begin to integrate this data into their business processes, becoming dependent on the outputs and the supplier.
Lastly, some suppliers leverage this as a way to generate incremental revenue. Again, the business value elevates the value proposition. It’s not just a way to view usage data but a way to efficiently monitor and optimize their business.
As suppliers evaluate their invoicing experience, it’s important to look beyond the final output and realize the business value that lies within pre-billed usage data. Empowering customers to automatically monitor usage activity in a meaningful way improves trust and efficiency, which are the pinnacles of a good customer experience.
Globys is an invoice-to cash platform which provides a customer experience for reviewing and paying invoices while orchestrating transactional data across charging, accounts receivable, and CRM systems. The Globys platform is used by carriers around the world to make their invoice-to-cash process sticky, efficient, predictable, and agile.
