Quote Originally Posted by VOIPoTim View Post
Well there's definitely a tradeoff in terms of marketing vs how pricing is structured. I'm trying to see if I can find some middle ground. The problem is that our costs to comply with various new initiatives that the government may be require are not factored into pricing if they don't exist today. So it's hard to "include" all of them without being able to tell what's going to happen in the future.

To qualify this, one thing I do not support is changing pricing to accommodate for required changes for customers who are in a prepaid term. I think that's a risk we as a service provider take on if we choose to accept a prepayment. I also feel that if we accept prepayment, we should accept it all at once so there are not additional charges until the term renews unless there are international calls or other usage based services. This is how our billing system has been designed to handle things already.

I have seen a lot of posts with people looking for bottom line pricing though and am trying to find some middle ground.

Any ideas?
I think there are two issues here Tim. First is the issue of 'real' government mandated fees and taxes. Although the public moans and groans, I believe they generally understand that you must pass through any _new_ ones that are meant to be user paid. Second is the elusive "compliance fees" which are quite obviously what I call "oops and gouge" fees; oops, we screwed up in our cost calculations and planning phase and need to charge more to balance the books, or the let's see how much we can tighten the thumb screws on our customers with fees that only add to our bottom line without showing an actual price hike.

The first is the reality of government largess and the politicians need to grab every penny they can to keep the ship from sinking... we pretty much understand that to be beyond your control. The second issue is the one that gets caught between the public's teeth and _really_ irritates the hell out of them because they just can't get it out... the dreaded 'unfees'. Don't go there, just offer price plans that are fair to the customer and that reflect the actual cost you need to charge to do business without the 'unfees'. If you need to raise prices based on sound business practices, then do so when contracts end, monthly, quarterly, semiannually or annually as the case may be. Give fair notice, and no after the fact rate hikes.

The issue of prepayment is simply one of having a contract for services. Unless the contract allows for surcharges for things such as fluctuating fuel costs, then the contract should stand as it is written. If I enter a contract for 10000 gallons of #1 diesel at $x.xx/gal I expect to receive exactly that, regardless of any market fluctuations.