How to reduce telecom cost

Telecom cost are a large part of a business' monthly expenses. Thus it makes sense to make sure you are not overpaying. Read the tips below to start reducing telecom cost.


Identify and rectify billing mistakes

It is also important that outright billing mistakes be identified and rectified. Billing errors can be of different types - a line or service that has been discontinued continues to be billed, costs indicated in contracts or quotes are not being reflected, there are incorrect assessment of taxes and many more. Auditing telecom bills is time consuming and though the errors detected may not seem to amount to much per month, when accumulated over the year, they add significantly to total telecom costs.


Make optimum use of existing lines and circuits

Another way of saving telecom costs is to optimize circuits so that they can be used to their maximum efficiency. This can be done by consolidating multiple narrow bandwidth lines - like the separate lines used for Internet access, PC connections to the Intranet and internal applications, the switchboard, credit card readers - into a few higher bandwidth lines. On the other hand, some companies, based on the plan they have selected, may have many smaller circuits that are not being fully utilized. In such a case, the best way to optimize the circuits may be to migrate some of the high cost, higher-capacity circuits to these smaller circuits.



Detect anomalies in usage and costs

To easily spot problems in telecommunications usage, it is necessary to assign proper usage and costs to specific departments within a company. For example, the sales department may have higher usage and costs than say the data processing department. Whenever a discrepancy in the usage is discovered, a thorough investigation is to be carried out so that errors can be quickly detected and rectified. One example is that of employees who stopped using the pagers handed to them by the company and neither returned them nor did they request the service to be discontinued.



Renegotiate contracts to get better deals

When it is time for renewing a contract, businesses should make their contracts competitive instead of just automatically renewing their present contract. They can request various carriers to provide details of specific plans or packages the company is interested in and ask them to quote a price for those services. This way a comparison across carriers can be made to see who is offering more services for the same price or who can offer the same package for a better price. In fact, as the carriers become aware of the competition for the contract, prices do tend to improve. They also offer better terms on early termination charges and service-level agreements. Even if the present carrier has provided satisfactory services, it makes more sense to renegotiate the contract so that the company can get a better deal on plans and rates.

Businesses can also consider using specialized software to analyze not only telecom bills but also rates and plans as well as to compare various vendor offerings. Another alternative is for businesses to outsource to experts who specialize in telecommunications analysis and cost management, thereby achieving better results at lower costs.