Background

Air IT have gained their high-ranking, managed service provider status by helping clients achieve success and transformation from their IT and communications systems. Following a major acquisition, they realised their billing provider was no longer keeping pace with the technological developments needed to support their expansion. Given their growth expectations Air IT were swayed by size and promised delivery and went with the market leader for their future billings provision.

In no time at all, however, they realised they had made a mistake. Their proposed provider had over-sold their promise and Air IT were experiencing unexpected levels of manual processing and increasing workloads. Support was also deteriorating, with analysis and reporting falling short of expectations and requirements. On seeing Inform Billing launch their web-based Eclipse NG software Air IT were immediately impressed by the modern interface, enhanced functionality and integration potential and so made the switch.

Challenges

Based on their previous experiences, Air IT wanted to overcome a number of challenges with their new provider. Inform Billing needed to show this was clearly achievable as soon as the switch took place. A clear set of requirements were made:

• Reduce manual processing with reliable automation
• Ensure accurate billing
• Reduce length of billing cycle
• Provide reliable analysis and intelligent reporting

Having had experience of working with two other billing providers Air IT had very high expectations of the Eclipse platform. The cloud-based solution has delivered against all requirements and outperforms the previous providers with greater functionality and higher levels of customer service.

Solution

There is so much in the Eclipse platform that makes billing easier for Air IT:

• New connections can be bulk added rather than having to be manually entered one by one
• Bundles can be passed on and re-bundled far more easily, making it easier to be flexible and more commercially competitive
• When a supplier changes a file, Inform Billing are proactive in liaising with them to ensure it will load in, taking the problem away from the customer
• The API allows for seamless integrations, automating processes

Benefits

Air IT have future-proofed their billing to meet their growth and acquisition targets, delivering increased confidence.

Support is instantaneous meaning Air IT aren’t held up waiting for help. The billing team are no longer permanently frustrated by billing nor working all evening fixing errors.  As a result, Air IT reduced its resource commitment to billing by 50%.  They have seen the positive effect on morale and believe investing in the effective platform contributed to being named CRN ‘Best Place to Work’ in 2019.

Bills are now always out by 8th of the month and in the first 18m Air IT reduced bill related customer queries by 65%. Improvements like this supported them to rank 182 in the ‘Channel Futures MSP 501 ‘, number one in the East Midlands and significantly increase turnover.