Are You Recession-Ready?

• REDUCE FIXED OVERHEADS
  You can?t escape paying rental for each BT line installed; you can save 16%
• SWITCH SERVICE PROVIDERS
  Check your service provider bills every 12 months to get the best deal.
• IDENTIFY NEW TECHNOLOGY
  Could emerging technologies like IP and VOIP be good for your business?
• REVIEW SERVICE CONTRACTS
  Don?t let contracts renew automatically without getting fresh quotes.

How To Reduce Your Business Phone Bill

Identify Frequently Dialled Numbers

Have a look at your phone bill and you could be shocked to see that calls to mobiles often account for around 40% or more of your total bill. These calls cost between 10 -12p per minute.

One solution to reduce these charges is to connect your phone system to the Vodafone network.

This changes the call from ?landline to mobile? to ?mobile to mobile? and can reduce the cost from 12p to 6.25p per minute.

Invest in New Technology?

Keep an eye out for newcomers like IP Telephony (VOIP). This could be what your company needs to enable it to reduce costs.

However not all companies will benefit from using VOIP.

Make sure you don?t invest in new technology just because it is hyped up by pushy sales people.

Switch Phone Companies

Changing providers will usually save you £££?s, especially if you have been stuck on the same deal for ages.

Make sure you don?t get locked into a contract for more than 12 months.

For example, British Telecom at the end of 12 months only allow 30 days to terminate their contract. If you forget, it renews automatically for another 12 months!

Lower Fixed Overheads

You can?t escape paying a fixed rental for every phone line installed.

You can save up to 16% off British Telecom prices.

Quality and Service

Don?t compromise on quality. Does your new service provider offer what you get at the moment plus extra benefits?

Will BT engineers continue to service and maintain your lines in the event of a problem?

IP Telephony (VOIP)

This has been described, usually by sales people, as the thing to have if your business wants to save a packet on call charges. It uses the internet via Broadband to make free calls. It sounds great, but remember nothing is free.

In order to get business-quality calls you have to pay for new equipment at all your sites that use VOIP. In addition you have to install a Broadband line and if you have lots of calls going between sites then you will need a premium Broadband line which is not cheap.

Finally, and we hate to tell you this; the quality of the calls is not as good as what you have been used to. Not all the time anyway. If you look at the websites of some of the large companies that offer VOIP, you will often see a disclaimer telling you this.

That?s why most businesses use VOIP in conjunction with their existing lines.

VOIP is very cost effective for international calls. The quality of call is perfect for domestic and low usage, inter-company and non urgent calls.

However given the low cost call packages available today there is often no benefit using VOIP for calls within the UK.