Dynamic Solutions 2000 Global Information and Billing System Dynamic Solutions 2000

Telephony

OASIS Telephony

Dynamic Solutions 2000 is offering a complete line of customer service, management, and billing products to the telephone and other communication industry segments. These systems are marketed under the generic product name of OASIS and are offered on different hardware platforms based on potential installation size.

Over the past 15 years, a constant evolution of the capacities and requirements for customer service systems, as well as, a desire to increase customer service capabilities as a method of both enhancing customer retention and decreasing customer service expense, has caused many corporations to invest significant portions of their revenue in purchasing or developing new information systems. Generally, these systems have been designed to be implemented in a single vertical market. And in the case of distributed software, the systems have frequently been developed for a specific customer's requirements, followed by the addition of extensive modifications to make the product useful to other companies in the same vertical market. The problem with this approach is that the final software product offered for sale is either lacking in sophisticated features and functions (if the product has had limited distribution), or is encumbered with layered modifications which can make the software expensive to both to maintain and enhance.

Dynamic Solutions 2000 believes that there is a better way to build, distribute, and maintain these highly specialized, frequently limited distribution products. The philosophy, which we have developed to support this belief, is based on utilization of specialized hardware and software development products selected to specifically counter balance the previously described problems. We also include in our products a design base, which extends the definition of "user definable" to new limits.

From a computer hardware perspective, Dynamic Solutions 2000 has selected the Client Server PC platform. This area has had the most growth over the last seventeen years and is targeted for the most growth over the next decade.

From a software perspective, Dynamic Solutions 2000's systems are designed with the latest structured methodologies and techniques, as well as, utilizing programmer productivity products, which enhance our ability to produce feature rich code initially. This reduces our long term maintenance expense and required lead time to respond to customer enhancement requests. Naturally, these factors contribute to Dynamic Solutions 2000 being capable of offering our products at an industry leading price level, both from a software license and maintenance perspective.

From a product design point of view, virtually every individual piece of data related to a customer or their activities, with the exception of items such as customer name and free form text comments, is tied by our software to reference files containing all of the acceptable responses for these data items. These reference files may come pre-populated with common industry terms, but allow the system user to add, modify, and delete items as appropriate to the actual company policies and way of doing business. Structuring a system in this fashion changes the complexion of the customer service system from a storage facility for millions of pieces of unmanageable data, to an extraordinarily valuable marketing and management tool. Naturally, the management of some of these reference items has appropriate security precautions included to prevent unauthorized tampering with critical data.

Combining all of the aforementioned attributes with Dynamic Solutions 2000's fresh and enthusiastic approach to constructing and maintaining these systems begins to provide an insight to Dynamic Solutions 2000's rapid success in the customer service marketplace.

Customer Data and On-line Facilities

From the first time that a prospective customer contacts the operating company's customer service representative, the OASIS system allows for entry and categorization of all activities. Initially, if the contact is a simple inquiry regarding service, or if the customer contact data is obtained from a third party service, the data is stored in the Marketing/Lead Tracking System and supplemented with the free form notes which are a part of the customer care system. The data collected includes name, address, and contact activity data, including such items as call back dates and times and special request information.

These functions allow for "tickler" file call back functions as well as intelligent evaluation of promotions, contact methods and sources, and telemarketing productivity and efficiency.

Should an individual prospect desire service, whether they pre-exist in the marketing database or not, they are added to the customer account portion of the system. Naturally, if an individual pre-existed in the marketing system, their previously entered data will be utilized to ease the task of conversion to an active account. The Customer Account portion of the system will store all relevant address(es), contact telephone number(s), account balance, and other pertinent data relevant to the customer's account.

This data, as well as interaction with the telephone number inventory and service plan offerings, is entered into the system through a service and installation order screen. Administrative personnel in ranges as required to support anticipated growth requirements enter telephone numbers that are assignable within the database. Once created, they are managed, as any other inventory resource would be.

In addition, if the customer wished to purchase, lease, or rent a telephone unit from the company, the service order system will support interface to built-in-inventory and point of sale system to support such transactions, as well as any one-time charges for installation, etc. Regardless of whether a purchase in involved, a credit check can be performed by the system via automated access to either a credit bureau or a credit card company, the latter being primarily used as an authorization request for either a purchase or a deposit transaction.

All of these functions are combined in an integrated customer service and work order system which includes extensive flexibility for scheduling support as well as task resource requirements allocations.

The system itself will perform other functions as a result of the actual data entered. As an example, the System can support up to 31 billing dates per month and will automatically select a date conducive to managing the batch workload on the System. The date selected by the System may be overridden by the CSR based on specific customer request or other administrative policy. Further, OASIS will default to a monthly billing cycle approach, but will support billing a customer's service charges on a 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, or 12 month basis, including support capability to set up appropriately reduced rates for such advance payment. Naturally, the System includes the ability to pro-rate all such periodic charges.

Throughout the on-line portion of the System, access to the Customer Care subsystem will be provided. As previously described, this portion of OASIS allows for the entry of pertinent dates, contact codes, and free form text to support historic and structured gathering of data from all contacts with every customer. Over time, this data will prove to be an invaluable resource to the marketing and management aspects of systems operations.

Within either the Marketing or Customer Account portion of the System, information may be accessed by Customer Name, Contact Number, Driver's License Number, Social Security Number, or Account Number, as applicable and available.

Service Charges and Rates

OASIS is designed to allow the customer to create and set up their own rate structure and methods, within the designed parameters of the system, for recurring service charges, one time charges, local call time, and toll time. This is done through the creation of a service plan within which each of the preceding listed items can be referenced. Note that this is layered approach to combining different pricing elements allows for the use of the one (or more) charging elements, such as a specific monthly rate, within several different service plans for different customers.

With respect to all service charges and one-time charges, the System will allow the creation of multiple different prices for a given charge. The appropriate price to be selected will be based on either the rule utilized by the expert system, or the predefined tiers, which are related to consumption levels of different services. These expert system rules are independent of the on-line system and can therefore be added and modified without disrupting the basic operation of the system. In fact, advanced users of the product may choose to install the development portion of the expert system so that they can create, test, and implement extensions to the rules database without Dynamic Solutions 2000's assistance or intervention. This capability extends a new level of flexibility to the OASIS System users not available with any other marketed product, short of having a full license to the System's source code, and the incumbent responsibilities thereto.

Toll charges will be linked to a calendar function utilized to define weekends and holidays, as well as the time of day tables that may be configured for up there different rate periods. As an example, it is common in long distance tables to support standard daytime, evening, and late evening or weekend rate tiers.

Toll rates will be definable within these tiers, as well as providing capabilities to define the time base for calls, such as 1 minute, 6 seconds, etc. It should be noted that the System will be provided with the ability to rate toll calls based on standard AT&T toll tariffs and that maintenance of these tariffs, as well as the required Terminating Point Data is the customer's responsibility.

The System also includes the ability to construct rate plans, which will discount toll usage based on amount of time utilized and with support for either stepped or cumulative rate capabilities.

The same table management area of the System is utilized to enter such important data as tax codes and rates, surcharges, finance charge rates, etc.

Call Collection and Rating

One of the most unique features of the OASIS System is its implementation of distributed processing for collection and real-time rating of all call data. Essentially, we require a large Pentium processor be co-located with each telephone switch and attached to an RS-232 port on that switch for the purpose of receiving all call data records at the time that the switch writes them to its own off-line storage facility, (typically a 9 track magnetic tape device). This data is reformatted to the Dynamic Solutions 2000 standard and rated immediately upon receipt, based on the customer's most current service class and rates. Furthermore, the collection device will be attached by way of a token ring bridge to a token ring LAN for application to customer account balances and storage until required for local customer billing.

Due to either customer service plan changes or accumulation of local calling time beyond defined tiers (in certain tiered rating plans), it may be necessary for some calls to be re-rated prior to billing. This task will be the responsibility of the Re-rating batch job processes on a large Pentium processor and linked to the same LAN.

The net result of this arrangement is that our OASIS System is capable of total call accounting management, including both local and toll call rating and charge accumulation on a real-time basis.

There are multiple advantages to Dynamic Solutions 2000's implementation in this function. The following is a partial list of them:

v Reduced exposure to revenue losses due to customer credit problems.

v Availability of completely and accurately rated calls within seconds to all CSR's to respond to customer inquiries and complaints.

v Reduction of batch processing window -- Since all call rating and Re-rating is performed on a CPU other than the batch billing system, the actual time to process a billing at the cycle date is significantly reduced.

v Extension of On-line Access Time -- Since all rating functions are performed on a CPU other than the on-line system, access time to the on-line is extended in some configurations to practically 24 hours per day, seven days per week.

v System Survivability in that the ability to batch rate call data will serve also as a back-up process to run in cadence with real-time processing to catch up after system outage. In fact, even with the LAN system down or unavailable, call collections and rating will continue, with queued up calls being forwarded once facilities are restored.

As a further benefit ensuing from Dynamic Solutions 2000's design, our internal call data message format carries adequate information to support extensive traffic analysis and reporting with potential to support network management functionality in the future.

Billing

As defined previously, OASIS is capable of supporting up to 31 billing cycle dates per month. On each of the dates actually utilized in a particular installation, it is necessary for a computer operator to execute the billing process.

Essentially, this process selects the customers that need to be billed based on a number of different factors including the assigned billing cycle, account balance, presence of pending calls, charges, credits, period of bill (in multi-month bill situations), and closes the open invoices for those customers selected.

The list of customers to be invoiced is utilized by the Re-Rating processor, along with current and appropriate service plan and rate data, to select and re-rate the individual calls, which require such processing.

At this point, the System will merge all data to be billed into its final forma, calculate any appropriate taxes, surcharges, and discounts, and post the same transactions to the customer's accounts receivable transactions.

The last step of the process is the actual formatting of the data to either a 4" x 7" or 8 1/2" x 11" bill format and generation of a bill image file and/or printing of the bill as appropriate to the installation, as well as creation of the appropriate data files to be utilized for on-line bill inquiry by the CSR's.

Should the customer utilize an off site-printing vendor, the print image file created can be transferred to magnetic tape and forwarded for processing. Note that the same type of tape can be utilized for both bill printing and creation of microfiche, should the latter be required.

MISCELLANEOUS

Payment Application

OASIS incorporates the ability to add payments to customer accounts in several different was, including payment entry, batch payment entry, credit card interface and lock box processing. In all methods, the payments are processed against the customer's account in a real-time, on-line basis, negating the requirements to wait until the next day to see accurate customer account status. Time based payment set up as monthly recurring charges for a large installation charge is also supported.

Credit Card & Bank Draft Processing

Customers can elect to pay their invoices each month via either a credit card transaction or a bank draft. In both cases, OASIS will generate the appropriate data files for either a bank or credit card clearinghouse and credit the customer's account appropriately.

Directory Assistance

OASIS as implemented for telephone operations support environments will include an integrated directory assistance database capability. This area will support special data extensions to store customer listings, as they would appear in a directory, as well as providing an interface point for third party DA equipment to query the OASIS database. This will bring the latest voice response technology within the reach of all customers, as well as, incumbent economic benefits to this type of operation.

Control Tables

One of the key reasons that Dynamic Solutions 2000 is able to offer a system with the total flexibility of OASIS is our commitment to building software with extensive user maintained table entries. In may areas, the tables control functionality, as well as pricing, taking this type of operation beyond many of our competitors. When this type of design is intelligently combined with expert system technology, the resulting product provides the user with the potential of creating logic to select from control table entries even beyond the programming login which is a standard part of OASIS. All of these flexibility options combine to make OASIS a system which is not only economical to install, but also to maintain.

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