How To Apply Call Charges For A Call Accounting Tool

One of the numerous jobs the Call Accounting Program carries out is to set call charges to all the phone call data. This amount should ideally be similar to the amount the telecom service provider applies to a phone call.

There are some telecom firms that have a fixed cost based on a per minute call charge; other networks go for a talk time rate on per second basis. Call charges differ depending on many factors, including the called party's telephone service provider. An issue is encountered for the call logging system when the telephone company allows subscribers to switch to another network while maintaining the old number. When subscribers adopt this method of number portability, no one can tell what telecom network a certain number belongs to. Hence, a person calling a specific number will not know how much he/ she will be billed for the call as he/ she is unclear about the network service he/ she is dialing to.

Many telecom firms have a varying rate for dialing to different networks - both national as well as internationally. In addition to this, there are various telecommunication firms that sell a variety of call packages with extra-minutes incentives to its users hence growing the intricacies a call accounting package must attempt to imitate.

The whole call accounting process turns out to be ineffective if the call accounting platform's call tariffs are not in conformity with the telephone company's call charges. A service is deemed accurate if it calculates at least 97% call rating precision. A percentage below 65% means the call logging service is ineffective and worthless to the customer.

The problem that, therefore, arises is: How does a call accounting tool conform to these variable call charges?

Many resellers install the call accounting solution without tariff lists and ask customers to enter the tariff details manually. If your call logging requirements are of a basic level and your telecom provider has simple call rates, you may save some money by going for this method, however, it will cost you some valuable time. On the other hand, if your telephone company has a complicated call rate structure and you have advanced call logging needs, then choosing this option will be too much hassle and hence of no use in the long run.

Suppliers occasionally sign a service agreement guaranteeing their rates will be in accordance with the phone company's. While offering a price, resellers have to consider the time and resources they are likely to use in providing the call accounting service to the stated requirements whilst holding the quoted cost as reasonable and justifiable as possible.

In a survey conducted for the Aberdeen Group, it was revealed that almost 12% of customer's telephone bills have faulty calculations and those blunders, to much of our surprise, were making the customers to pay more. If you come across a scenario in which your telecom invoice does not match the call accounting invoice, immediately check the root cause of this error by calling your service providers, before blaming this functionality error on the call logging solution.


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