"Friends and Family"
“Friends and family” is a flexible innovative customer-oriented technology, providing differentiated number-based rating.
CBOSS Corporation proprietary technology enables subscribers to create own privileged number groups, allowing carriers to offer discounted calls with family members, friends, colleagues, etc.
Operation
“Friends and family” technology allows carriers to create groups of privileged numbers and directions. Numbers are added to these groups upon customer’s wish. Calls with privileged numbers and directions are rated using special correction factors (affecting call cost).
The Friends&Family technology supports four rating methods:
Proportional method requires a predefined Friends&Family group where the correction factor depends on the quantity of numbers, and maximum quantity is pre-specified. Upon quantity change, call cost is changed automatically.
Set of factors allows additionally accounting number position in the group. For instance, if a group includes a single number, a 0.7 correction factor is set; upon adding another number into the group, correction factor for the first number is changed into 0.8, for the second number 0.85 is set.
In the individual method, numbers are added by operators: number is not included into a group and all parameters are tuned individually.
Direction discount allows setting an individual discounted tariff for the whole direction. It enables to discount, for example, long-distance and international calls.
If necessary, privileged numbers may be limited: for instance, discounts may apply only to mobile numbers.
Functionalities
Option offers the following functionalities:
- Individual set of Friends & Family groups for each customer.
Technology supports several Friends & Family groups for a customer, allowing any combination of correction factors. For instance, discounts for calls to family members or calls to a selected city have proven to be effective.
- Number creation/change/deletion in Friends & Family groups.
- Number position change (influencing rating parameters).
Functionality is used only in the “Set of factors” rating method.
- Discount (factor) registration for a direction.
- Correction factor change.
Factors allow correcting call cost and accounting additional rating conditions: call time, direction (incoming/outgoing), etc.
Correction factors allow limiting use of discounted tariffs during the night. Usually cost of all night calls is multiplied by a reduction factor. Friends&Family factor allows suspending all simultaneously active factors, i.e. occasional calls are rated based on time of day, while calls to privileged numbers are rated by a single tariff.
- Registration of operations with privileged numbers executed in CBOSSacc, CBOSSics, CBOSSsms, CBOSSussd and CBOSSisp.
- Configuration of Friends&Family rating rules.
- Charges.
“Friends and Family” technology supports periodical charges for privileged numbers (directions), as well as one-time charges – for adding, deleting or changing a number (direction).
Moreover, periodic charges may depend on the quantity of Friends&Family numbers.
Benefits
- Reduced migration and successful customer acquisition.
Friends&Family service (offered in tariffs or separately) is beneficial to customers communicating mostly with a limited number of people: colleagues, friends, family members.
- Traffic increase.
While discounts encourage customers to communicate more, this technology has proven to be a revenue generator.
Being accustomed to use the mobile phone inside the group, customers become more willing to make other calls.
- Partial loss compensation.
Service fees allow partially compensating revenue lost due to discounts and preventing fraud (when customers change privileged numbers frequently).
