Xenos Group Paves the Way for Bell Canada's First On-Line Bill Presentment Service
With Xenos' DocumorphTM, electronic bills look just like printed ones.
Toronto - July 29th, 1999- Xenos Group today announced that it has created one of the telecommunications industry's first large-scale applications to enable customers to view their telephone bills using the Web. The application, developed for Bell Canada (TSE: BELL), is now available to subscribers to Bell's seven million residential and small business customers in Ontario and Québec.
"Xenos Group is proud to help Bell and its customers go beyond the printed page," said Martin Heenan, president of Xenos Group. "Like other innovative North American organizations, Bell knows that electronic bill presentment and payment means dramatic cost savings and superior customer service."
Bell's electronic bills will look exactly like the paper-based bills customers now receive, because Xenos Group's DocumorphTM software transforms the information and layout on the printed page directly to a Web page. Using a phone number and a password, a customer can securely access on-line bills using any standard Web browser. They are then able to view up to 13 months of billing records on-line. Bell is now using Documorph to deliver bills to its customers more rapidly than via the traditional print/mail process.
"Bell is using on-line contact to get closer to its customers by offering them tremendous flexibility, reliability and security," said Bill Garbarino, Vice President, Electronic Channels. "We chose Xenos Group because of its expertise in developing and implementing electronic document presentment technology."
Bell Canada's solution, developed in just six months, is one of the most ambitious on-line bill presentment programs in North America. Documorph will transform tens of millions of pages of monthly bills and calling records into Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) in either English or French. The software, which runs under IBM-MVS, NT and HP-UX operating systems, automatically converts the underlying legacy billing application printstream to PDF, preserving everything about the branded look-and-feel customers already know, right down to the logo and the color of the pre-printed paper stock. In addition, Documorph also generates electronic bookmarks in either language for easy navigation of the bill. Imbedded URLs in the statement will enable Bell to implement one-to-one marketing and e-commerce transactions directly from the statement.
Bell's initiative to move these transactions to the Web, part of its Bell Directä service, is expected to save the company millions of dollars in printing and postage costs. The application will also improve customer service, because service representatives will be able to see the exact bill that the customer is referencing - not just database fields on a screen. This means that customer service representatives will have all the information from the bill to provide an immediate response to their clients' questions.
About Xenos Group
Xenos Group (www.xenosgroup.com) is an innovative provider of e-commerce document presentment software. From existing host environments to the Internet, the company has the ability to convert print or data streams into any digital output media on any platform. Large organizations with high volume document requirements use this technology to save millions of dollars every year through the electronic reproduction and distribution of branded customer-contact documents such as bills, policies and statements.
About Bell Canada
Bell Canada (www.bell.ca), the largest Canadian telecommunications operating company, markets a full range of state-of-the-art products and services to more than seven million business and residence customers in Ontario and Québec.
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