New Telecom Billing

Forums › Spark New Zealand › New Telecom Billing

tss

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

# 129334 11-Sep-2013 13:46

Telecom has just sent out their new bill to me in their new format. By default it doesn't include a summary of Included Minutes vs used minutes.

You need to contact Telecom to alter the creation of your bill to include these details. Unless you wanted to confuse customers why would you by default not include the included minutes vs used minutes?

http://help.telecom.co.nz/app/answers/detail/a_id/27971

Would love to hear anyone from Telecoms thoughts on that...

Marty

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

# 894263 11-Sep-2013 13:49

don't know about that, but I see they are still representing MB in some bizarre abstract way.

apparently 250MB = 25,600.00 units of some kind.

Inphinity

2541 posts

Uber Geek

# 894267 11-Sep-2013 13:56

NonprayingMantis: don't know about that, but I see they are still representing MB in some bizarre abstract way.

apparently 250MB = 25,600.00 units of some kind.

They presumably still measure it in 10Kb increments. 250MB = 256KB = 25,600 * 10Kb.

I'm more annoyed that MyTelecom doesn't show when the rollover date for attached mobiles is, you have to sign in as each mobile to see that. Grr.

Yyrael

222 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

# 894269 11-Sep-2013 13:58

uhhhhhh my bill has included minutes on page 3 so unsure why yours wouldnt....

plambrechtsen

1948 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

# 894273 11-Sep-2013 14:10

Inphinity:
NonprayingMantis: don't know about that, but I see they are still representing MB in some bizarre abstract way.

apparently 250MB = 25,600.00 units of some kind.

They presumably still measure it in 10Kb increments. 250MB = 256KB = 25,600 * 10Kb.

I'm more annoyed that MyTelecom doesn't show when the rollover date for attached mobiles is, you have to sign in as each mobile to see that. Grr.

You can always ring up the billing team and ask for the roll over dates to get moved onto the same bill cycle date as your monthly bill. That way you will know it will always be the same date (if that's what you prefer).

Bill cycle date isn't set in stone, it just takes talking with the billing team to get it updated.

Inphinity

2541 posts

Uber Geek

# 894275 11-Sep-2013 14:11

plambrechtsen:
You can always ring up the billing team and ask for the roll over dates to get moved onto the same bill cycle date as your monthly bill. That way you will know it will always be the same date (if that's what you prefer).

Bill cycle date isn't set in stone, it just takes talking with the billing team to get it updated.

Thanks, I plan to do that. I was more confused that it didn't just display it :)

plambrechtsen

1948 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

# 894277 11-Sep-2013 14:16

Inphinity:
plambrechtsen:
You can always ring up the billing team and ask for the roll over dates to get moved onto the same bill cycle date as your monthly bill. That way you will know it will always be the same date (if that's what you prefer).

Bill cycle date isn't set in stone, it just takes talking with the billing team to get it updated.

Thanks, I plan to do that. I was more confused that it didn't just display it :)

I'll ping the web team about it since IMHO it should really be shown in the one portal.

Unfortunately Mobile has sat on it's own doing it's own thing in regards to self service and customer experience for a while and some of the tight integrations I would have liked to have seen in MyTelecom in regards to leveraging the Mobile Self Service got de-scoped from the project. I'm a senior developer on the retail subscriber authentication stack that covers MyTelecom and Mobile Self Service and a whole myriad of others independently so yes I am well aware of the poor customer experience in that space.

But showing anniversary date I believe a far enough request without killing too much real estate so I will ask the right people.

Inphinity

2541 posts

Uber Geek

# 894289 11-Sep-2013 14:29

plambrechtsen:
But showing anniversary date I believe a far enough request without killing too much real estate so I will ask the right people.

Awesome, thanks :)

In regards to real estate, well, it could replace the text that says "To find out when your plan allowance will be renewed call *333" ;)

While we're at it, it would be great to get a minutes used / minutes left meter available more easily for mobile, I seem to get the mobile data one on just about every page (Summary, Pay Monthly Mobile), but have to actually go through the calls list and add the minutes up. Again, if I log in to YourTelecom for each mobile it shows it, but it would be great if it could show it in the main MyTelecom summary for the account - we currently have 3 mobiles on the account, soon to probably be 4, and it would make it far easier to track and manage :) So a 'usage meter' for included mobile plan minutes would be a great help.

plambrechtsen

1948 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

# 894292 11-Sep-2013 14:33

Inphinity:
plambrechtsen:
But showing anniversary date I believe a far enough request without killing too much real estate so I will ask the right people.

Awesome, thanks :)

In regards to real estate, well, it could replace the text that says "To find out when your plan allowance will be renewed call *333" ;)

Or better yet a link to the Mobile Self Service portal based off the mobile number you are currently looking at that either auto-logs you in doing some clever jiggery pokery in the backend to a new window (which was my preference) or at the very least have a link to Mobile Self Service page that fills in your mobile number... Unfortunately I lost that argument :(

tss

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

# 894293 11-Sep-2013 14:33

Yyrael: uhhhhhh my bill has included minutes on page 3 so unsure why yours wouldnt....

Hmmm perhaps that's because your account has already had it's defaults changed to include the summary of included minutes. But the help page makes me think that by default your summary of included minutes will not show on your bill unless you take some sort of action. I had to get someone at Telecom to change mine but perhaps I am an edge case & everyone else will have theirs on by default.

Inphinity

2541 posts

Uber Geek

# 894295 11-Sep-2013 14:38

plambrechtsen:
Inphinity:
plambrechtsen:
But showing anniversary date I believe a far enough request without killing too much real estate so I will ask the right people.

Awesome, thanks :)

In regards to real estate, well, it could replace the text that says "To find out when your plan allowance will be renewed call *333" ;)

Or better yet a link to the Mobile Self Service portal based off the mobile number you are currently looking at that either auto-logs you in doing some clever jiggery pokery in the backend to a new window (which was my preference) or at the very least have a link to Mobile Self Service page that fills in your mobile number... Unfortunately I lost that argument :(

Hmm, that could start to get messy for those like myself who have multiple mobiles attached.. it's already annoying enough that the call list and mobile data usage meters have to be changed individually for which number they reflect, rather than pick a mobile number and both data sets reflect this choice. For example if I go to Pay Monthly Mobile, I get three distinct data fields - "Pay Monthly Mobile" which gives me a link to view my unbilled calls, "Mobile Data Usage" which shows a nice usage meter for used/limit, and "PUK Code". The last one is, of course, irrelevant most of the time. But each of these three regions on the page has a separate dropdown for selecting which mobile's data is displayed. I'm sure there's a reason for it, but it would be nice too to be able to select a number, and see the total usage summary for that number (minutes used / left on plan, MB used / left on plan, txt used / left (if applicable to plan)").

I'm sure you don't want to hear me keep whining about the customer portal, though, is there a better place or person to raise these issues with, or is it best done through here?

plambrechtsen

1948 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

# 894297 11-Sep-2013 14:42

tss:
Yyrael: uhhhhhh my bill has included minutes on page 3 so unsure why yours wouldnt....

Hmmm perhaps that's because your account has already had it's defaults changed to include the summary of included minutes. But the help page makes me think that by default your summary of included minutes will not show on your bill unless you take some sort of action. I had to get someone at Telecom to change mine but perhaps I am an edge case & everyone else will have theirs on by default.

I'm not sure about this, just checked my latest bill (from yesterday strangely enough) and it's showing all mobile calls my wife made on her mobile phone to the particular numbers, and then on the last page showing the summary for her number at the end. Including the whacky Data "384 Calls and 21813 units used. Instead of just saying 21.8MB used. Another argument I lost.

tss

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

# 897000 17-Sep-2013 15:06

plambrechtsen:
tss:
Yyrael: uhhhhhh my bill has included minutes on page 3 so unsure why yours wouldnt....

Hmmm perhaps that's because your account has already had it's defaults changed to include the summary of included minutes. But the help page makes me think that by default your summary of included minutes will not show on your bill unless you take some sort of action. I had to get someone at Telecom to change mine but perhaps I am an edge case & everyone else will have theirs on by default.

I'm not sure about this, just checked my latest bill (from yesterday strangely enough) and it's showing all mobile calls my wife made on her mobile phone to the particular numbers, and then on the last page showing the summary for her number at the end. Including the whacky Data "384 Calls and 21813 units used. Instead of just saying 21.8MB used. Another argument I lost.

This is crazy, when you go to mytelecom on your phone half way through your billing cycle and check your usage it is still in MB's so why is it different on actual bill?
Where is the consistency?

tss

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

# 897009 17-Sep-2013 15:09

tss:
Yyrael: uhhhhhh my bill has included minutes on page 3 so unsure why yours wouldnt....

Hmmm perhaps that's because your account has already had it's defaults changed to include the summary of included minutes. But the help page makes me think that by default your summary of included minutes will not show on your bill unless you take some sort of action. I had to get someone at Telecom to change mine but perhaps I am an edge case & everyone else will have theirs on by default.

Further to this I just checked someone else's bill and it looks like by default this billing function is turned OFF... I wonder how widespread this is...

Lazarui

136 posts

Master Geek

# 897055 17-Sep-2013 16:02

Seems a bit crazy how hard would it be for them to build something into the billing that automagically re-calculates thier crazy Data/Calls into a understandable amount before presenting it to the customer.