Offering companies across Europe intuitive communications solutions to improve their business
NFON AG is a European provider of voice-centric business communications present in 15 European countries. Available exclusively via resellers, NFON’s business communications enable users to connect from anywhere, by phone, video or conferencing. Additional intelligent integrations that improve productivity, collaboration, plus user and customer experience include: integrations with Microsoft Teams, call recording and monitoring, SIP and Contact Center Hub – a feature-rich and fully scalable omni-channel cloud customer contact solution.
The growing trend in flexible and hybrid working has created a shift from traditional on-premises telephone systems to hosted cloud telephone systems and VoIP (voice over IP), creating a sizeable opportunity for NFON.
To seize this moment and pave a clear path towards growth, NFON has set objectives to target, enhance and scale their business by 2024. They aim to optimise their product portfolio and continue to improve their offering beyond the current model and towards smarter workflow voice-centric communication.
Scaling-up their partner network is another key aspect of NFON’s goal to remain the channel provider for voice-centric business services. As the number of partners reselling their cloud-based telephony and related services increases, billing has become more complicated.
NFON identified that they had a gap in their portfolio – to provide cloud-based telephony billing and VoIP billing services on behalf of their customers. Adding this to their list of services would mean their partners wouldn’t need to work with a separate billing vendor because NFON could conveniently fulfil this service for them. NFON is always striving to serve their customers’ business communications demands even better – and simpler billing would help attract new members to the partner programme too.
Looking for a bureau billing service from an ISO 27001 certified billing partner
PRD Technologies and NFON have a major client in common and have known each other for several years. NFON asked us to provide a bureau billing platform that would enable them to offer their customers a better managed billing service.
Bureau billing offers flexible, fast and accurate billing and data analysis, all from one converged platform. It’s an appealing fit for the suite of services within the NFON Partner Programme because it saves partners time, reduces manual data processing and results in more accurate analysis of data consumption for clear, fast and easy billing.
NFON’s managed billing service would need to be white labelled so invoices appear to come from NFON’s resellers with their company details and branding. Intelligent Billing was the perfect fit because it includes BoBo (Billing On Behalf Of A.K.A. white-labelled) functionality. It would also need to be scalable and with the highest level of PRD help desk support, to ensure NFON manage partner billing to optimum service levels.
In addition, NFON would require multilingual and multi-currency billing to cover regions including Germany, France, Italy and Austria. Certification to ISO27001: information security management system was a prerequisite, which PRD Technologies has achieved.
PRD Technologies had previously configured BoBo software for NFON, which we still host and support. Work we’d already done for a mutual client with very similar telecom billing data gave them even deeper confidence. Plus, our UK competitors don’t provide multi-currency and multilingual BoBo services. All these factors gave NFON the confidence that we were the right billing partner to help them grow their business successfully.
How PRD Technologies configured NFON’s bureau billing platform
Intelligent Billing ‘Pro’ is accurate, powerful, secure technology that provides sophisticated billing functionality, solving the challenges of billing telecoms services, including international billing and automatization of otherwise time-consuming manual processes.
- PRD Technologies analysed NFON’s requirements and implemented the ‘Pro’ version of their Intelligent Billing software
- Held regular progress meetings along the way, following a project management plan
- Rigorous testing and QA undertaken prior to final delivery
- Implemented an end-customer portal for NFON customers to check their data in real-time
- Provided comprehensive training and support to the NFON billing team, empowering them to manage their own billing, with PRD providing second-line support as and when required
- ‘Pro’ version provides NFON’s reseller partners with a managed billing processing solution, reducing the time required to do this in-house and eliminating manual errors
An overall enhanced customer service experience for NFON’s customers
PRD Technologies met NFON’s bureau billing requirements, delivering the new system on time and within budget. Thanks to Intelligent Billing, NFON can now offer full end-to-end services to their reseller partners, with many benefits:
- Maximised opportunity and an improved service to customers
- Competitive edge achieved within the cloud telephony systems market
- Additional revenue stream acquired
- Better business insights for NFON and their resellers with integrated and bespoke reporting tools
- Automated bureau billing functionality reduces need for NFON to be billing experts, reducing staff costs and skill requirements
- Reseller partner portal enables NFON resellers to review and print invoices with drill down and core bill analytics
- Streamlined onboarding of reseller partners
- Relinquished responsibility for hosting the platform – monthly patch-updates, regular audits, testing and platform maintenance all handled by dedicated IT support and IT security teams at PRD Technologies, ensuring the highest standards
- Accessible assistance and support from the PRD Support Team, to solve billing queries and make platform enhancements as and when required
“Intelligent Billing Pro has been revolutionary for us here at NFON. Processing billing data is so much easier, invoices are issued accurately and on time and we no longer need to get bogged-down in the complexities of billing – PRD Technologies has it all in hand. Intelligent Billing can support all the products and services NFON offers our reseller partners, and PRD regularly review performance to keep pace with NFON’s changing requirements.
“That system adaptability – along with how delighted we are with the quality of their service and support – means we are already discussing introducing Intelligent Billing to other regions such France, Italy and Austria.”
Marie Ellis, Business Operations Manager, NFON
