In line with our commitment to customer service, we continue to seek ways to improve our service delivery to our customers. Our Disputes and Claims team takes this commitment very seriously and has introduced a number of improvements to better support our customers’ needs. In this edition of TWNetwork, Telstra Wholesale’s Manager, Customer Disputes and Claims, Gilbert Loiseau shares with us the latest on what his team is doing to deliver better service to our customers.
Like any business-to-business relationship, sometimes Telstra Wholesale’s customers may wish to dispute a bill. When they do, our dedicated Disputes and Claims team has the skills, knowledge and standardised processes to ensure our customers receive a high-quality service.
“Our billing disputes and claims process allows our customers to submit their disputes via a simple process, secure in the knowledge that it will be handled by a dedicated team familiar with their business,” explains Gilbert.
“We respond to the majority – more than 99 per cent – of billing disputes we receive within the contractual terms we have established with our customers.
Continuous improvement
As we focus our efforts on improving service to our customers, we have implemented a number of changes to improve our customers’ experience when using the billing dispute process.
“We have made our correspondence to customers more user-friendly and easier for them to understand,” explains Gilbert.
“We are also offering ‘refresher’ presentations to customers to take them through the process and give them an opportunity to ask any questions they may have.
“To simplify administration for our customers, we have introduced a discretionary business rule which allows some customers to short pay future bills where recurring rate correction is required. This means the affected customer does not need to dispute each subsequent bill.
“And we are also working on a new web-based application that will help us validate data and automate some of the reporting of billing disputes, to provide a simpler solution for our customers.
The proof of our performance
Telstra Wholesale’s Disputes and Claims team is certified under the AS/NZS ISO 9001:2000 Quality Standard and ensures the billing disputes process complies with customers’ contractual requirements.
“We conduct an audit each month to ensure the process is being followed correctly and this also allows us to keep improving our service,” says Gilbert.
“In the past, it took us an average of 30 business days to respond to a customer’s complex billing dispute. Now we provide detailed evaluations within an average of 14 business days. Preparing these comprehensive responses involves verifying the contract terms, seeking expert advice from our sales, products and operational teams across the business, and interrogating our tracking, billing and provisioning systems.
“As a result of the thoroughness of our research and the detailed documentation we provide, we find that in over 90 per cent of cases, customers accept the initial findings of our investigations.
A strong and dedicated team
The team behind Telstra Wholesale’s billing disputes and claims process has vast experience, with an average of 14 years service.
“The people in our team have experience with billing, credit management, accounts receivable, debtors, customer service and administration,” says Gilbert.
“Thanks to the introduction of our dedicated disputes team, and our more collaborative approach in dealing with our customers, outstanding billing disputes have decreased from more than $1.8m in June 2007 to only $574k in October this year.
“We have also invested significant effort in improving our processes to reduce billing errors. This investment has resulted in the billings we credit back to customers decreasing from 0.68 per cent in 2006/07 to 0.3 per cent currently.
“With these skills, and the knowledge and support of colleagues from the wider Wholesale team, I am confident our team will continue to deliver an effective process that meets our customers’ needs.”
More information
Please call the Disputes and Claims team on 02 9298 4406 or visit our website at: http://telstrawholesale.com/operationalsupport/billing/disputes.htm
