Another release...
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Tuesday September 2 8:09 AM EDT
Company Press Release
Saville Provides Time Warner Communications With Saville CBP Billing Platform
BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 2, 1997--
Saville CBP will provide the company with flexible, easy-to-use
customer care and convergent billing system
Saville Systems (NASDAQ:SAVLY) today announced Time Warner Communications will use its convergent billing platform, Saville CBP, to bill for its local business phone services.
A facilities-based competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) offering local business phone service, Time Warner Communications will use Saville's convergent billing and customer care platform to enhance its customer care and service capabilities, improve cost efficiencies of operations and develop new product offerings.
``We continue to look for and develop more efficient methods of providing customer care and services,'' said Graham Powers, senior vice president of engineering for Time Warner Communications. ``Saville's billing platform should help us meet those goals and is another step in our progress to be the best CLEC in the industry.''
Through its facilities management service, Saville will remotely manage the back-end functions of Saville CBP for Time Warner Communications, such as bill and report generation and account receivables, from its data center. This cost-effective alternative gives Time Warner Communications software license and hardware
ownership for the system without requiring it to dedicate information technology (IT) staff to manage the system.
``Saville CBP was designed to meet specific customer needs, such as pricing flexibility and ease-of-use. In particular, these features enable LECs and CLECs like Time Warner Communications to immediately begin using and benefiting from the system,'' said Jack Boyle, president and CEO of Saville. ``As providers expand their product lines to include a full range of communication services, Saville CBP will scale to meet their needs rather than forcing them to invest more time and resources in a new system.''
Integrated, easy-to-use platform
Saville CBP will provide Time Warner Communications with a cost-effective, integrated system that supports the entire customer care and billing process through its customer care, order management, event management, billing and receivables modules. By using one platform for all its needs, the company will be able to reduce its
operational costs while still providing all the services and products its customers demand. This one-stop shopping approach helps reduce customer churn and builds customer loyalty.
Saville CBP supports the full range of telecom services, including wireline, wireless and dedicated access, within a single business platform. Anticipating that competitive providers such as Time Warner Communications would launch their business with one or two services and gradually add more service offerings, Saville
CBP is designed to scale with a provider's needs. Time Warner Communications will initially use the system to bill for local access in the business market, and will add new service offerings in the future. As they increase their offerings, they can simply add the new service and pricing information to Saville CBP's network tables.
From customer care to account receivables
Saville CBP is designed as a set of integrated modules that support the entire customer asset management process. Key modules include:
Customer Care Manager
Saville CBP's Customer Care Manager provides service reps with information about every aspect of a customer's account from a single integrated desktop. The system's customer profiles define the customer and the products and services they buy. Saville CBP's graphical user interface enables service reps to easily access information to establish and maintain the customer relationship by answering customer questions, adding new services, and making adjustments to their accounts in real time.
The Customer Care Manager's new table-driven screens make it easy for service reps to find information on existing customers and add new ones. These screens guide reps through the customer entry process step by step. This enables reps to easily create new customer profiles based on categories such as equipment, network configuration, and products and services. It also helps telecom providers save time and money on training.
Order Manager
Saville CBP's new integrated Order Manager automatically generates and updates service orders based on changes made to the Customer Care Manager. After service reps define the customer, the system automatically creates a new service order or future dated order, based on the new service request. In today's deregulated environment, telecom providers may use multiple independent service providers, multiple switches and multiple agencies to deliver service to their
customers. Saville CBP's Order Manager enables service reps to associate an order with the service provider that will complete the work, and assign the order to a work center for a specific service provider.
This tight module integration eliminates the need for a separate order management system, and enables reps to generate service orders for complex business services such as dedicated access for point-to-point circuits, local area networks and wide area networks.
Event Manager
This module enables marketing departments to quickly create flexible pricing plans for individual and groups of services, providing them with a competitive advantage by letting them bring new products to market quickly.
Each customer activity recorded at a switch or server, such as a voice call, data transmission or retail transaction, is identified in the system's tables as a data element with a corresponding price. After marketing staff define event pricing in the tables, they can assign special product codes to combinations of events to create
customized packages of services. Not only does this provide marketing with increased pricing options, it makes it easier for service reps to choose different services. Previously, marketing staff created separate product codes for each service, forcing reps to manually choose each code that represented the services a customer
wanted. Now, with one keystroke reps can choose customized product bundles that include specific rates, equipment, features and services.
Billing Manager
Saville CBP's Billing Manager calculates and generates customer bills based on the customer's billing preference and pricing rules for all products and services. Once the bill is calculated, Saville CBP generates a convergent bill, listing every service the customer ordered and the pricing on a single convenient invoice.
Receivables Manager
This module handles billing inquiries, account balance management, payments, adjustments and collections. Access to this information enables providers to stay updated on customers' accounts and better determine which customers are credit risks so they can more effectively manage bad debt.
About Time Warner Communications
Time Warner Communications, owned by Time Warner and US WEST, offers business customers dedicated transport and CLEC telephone services in 19 major U.S. markets.
About Saville Systems
Founded in 1982, Saville Systems is the leading provider of convergent billing and customer care solutions for the telecommunications industry. Saville is a publicly held company, traded on the Nasdaq (US) market under the symbol SAVLY, and employs over 900 professionals worldwide. For more information, Saville can be reached at www.savillesys.com, or call (+1) 617-270-6500.
Contact:
Saville Systems
John Hart
(617) 270-6500
jhart@savillesys.com
or
Beaupre & Co. Public Relations
Christine LeCompte
(603) 436-6690
lecompte@beaupre.com
or
Time Warner Communications
Bob Meldrum
(303) 799-5768
bob.meldrum@twcable.com
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