ATS is excited to announce a brand new feature to our quarterly newsletter.  Each quarter we will be sitting down with a revenue assurance, billing, or network expert from carriers around the world.  We’ll ask the questions and bring you the answers.  Would you like to submit a question for the next interview, or would you like to be the person we interview?  Email us at info@atso.com.

In the first installment of Carrier Sit-Down, we got the opportunity to spend a few minutes with Kathy Romano, Executive Director of Revenue Assurance and Billing at Verizon Telecom.  Kathy has 30+ years of telecom experience including central office engineering, marketing, HR, IT, billing, and finance.

Guthrie: How important is revenue assurance to the senior management at Verizon?

Romano: Our senior leaders take Revenue Assurance very seriously. We review the outcomes and challenges of our program with them periodically through the year. We are often asked to do a deeper dive into trends and risk areas that they are seeing emerge at their level.

Guthrie: As we close out 2010, where have your greatest successes come this year? What have your greatest challenges been?

Romano: I would have to say that our greatest successes have been the many issues that we have identified and prevented from impacting customers. Our greatest challenges have been the ones that got away – the times that we were not able to get in front of things and customers were impacted. Those numbers are getting fewer all of the time, due to the incredible partnership that we have with our IT team and our Marketing and Sales Channel teams. We have achieved as a team what none of us could have achieved as an individual team.

Guthrie: What areas do you plan to focus on in 2011?

Romano: We intend to continue what we are doing and work to get better and better at what we do. The network operates at five 9s. I would love to get there eventually.

Guthrie: What role does data analytics play?

Romano: Data analytics is at the core of Revenue Assurance. There is an astonishing amount of data required to isolate issues and do so early enough to positively impact the customer experience by preventing the customer from seeing the issue. Tools to analyze and create intelligence out of the data are critical.

Guthrie: With an increasing number of services offered, how do you prevent revenue leakage from escalating?

Romano: With every new service, package or promotion, we require that Revenue Assurance controls are in place at launch. And even if a control finds nothing, it is left in place to insure that nothing ever breaks in that area. Our controls run on a regular basis and are actively monitored to assure that we identify emerging issues very quickly.

Guthrie: What will your company be doing to improve the customer experience?

Romano: The customer experience continues to be at the core of what we do. Without the customers, we have no reason for being. Every part of our company continually looks for ways to improve the customer experience.

Guthrie: What role do vendors play in helping you with revenue assurance solutions?

Romano: Vendors are critical to deliver us the tools that will allow us to gather, analyze and obtain intelligence from large volumes of data. Without our vendors, we would have extreme difficulty in fully executing our mission.

Guthrie:  Thank you very much for your time Kathy.

Romano: Thank you.