Brits have more belief in aliens than in mobile operators

In a report that will resonate in South Africa, it’s been found that many UK citizens are more likely to believe aliens live amongst us, than that mobile operators will take steps to improve customer billing.

Brite:Bill, the billing communications platform provider, has released new survey results which found that 4.6 million UK citizens are more likely to believe aliens live amongst us, than mobile operators will take steps to improve the customer billing experience. The study, which looked at how dissatisfied consumers currently are with their operators’ billing, found that nearly a third of the UK’s phone subscribers believe that mobile operators are uncaring when it comes to individual billing issues.

The UK-wide survey carried out last month by independent research house Censuswide also found that nearly 33 million mobile subscribers wanted clearer breakdowns of incurred charges and more personalised bills. Over six million subscribers complained that they simply don’t have the time or inclination to decipher the jargon-heavy bills sent by operators.

Younger phone users were the most dissatisfied with current practises. Over half of 16 – 24 year olds felt their mobile operator didn’t care about personalized billing issues and one in three wanted easier access to billing information across multiple devices.

Alan Coleman, CEO of Brite:Bill says: “Bills can be the one time each month that operators have direct contact with their consumers and, the sad truth is, most are doing a terrible job of it. Only 19 percent of consumers actually believe mobile operators are dedicated to improving customer experience when it comes to collecting their cash. Viewing billing as a matter of cold, purely transactional revenue collection is bad enough but making charges impossible to interpret is disastrous and sends customer churn sky high – which no operator can afford to do.

The survey also revealed that consumers are in fact open to hearing about offers of further products and services on bills themselves – a channel which has traditionally been neglected in current marketing efforts. 20 percent (12,992,000) of those surveyed said they’d welcome hearing about new offerings that are specifically related to their mobile use pattern.

Alan Coleman concluded: “The advantages of personalized and user friendly billing is clear. Over half of consumers say it would increase the level of trust in operators and over 10 million phone subscribers would recommend to friends if they are pleased with their billing experience. Word of mouth is a very powerful endorsement for service providers. However, we’re yet to see widespread adoption of the practices customers want, meaning operators are potentially leaving money on the table.