Saving money on telecoms services for your business is always worth considering. While most business owners review costs such as rent, insurance, staffing, and more on an annual basis, telecoms cost often gets disregarded as they’re easy to forget about.
In the UK, small businesses spend on average £2,052 a year on telecom services and there is a significant amount of money to be saved here. Looking deeper, we are going to show you how your business save money by looking what is happening in the telecoms market impacting the price and the steps you can take to reduce your telecoms costs.
Merge Your Services
One of the best ways of saving money on costs when it comes to telecoms, is if all your essential services are from the same provider; you will be able to request they issue you with a single bill merging all the services into one. This will make working out finances much simpler, plus you will get the opportunity to discuss better rates if they are getting your business for multiple services.
Customer Services
Understandably, you will be focusing on the money saving of the services, it is still important to consider the care received from the company. In the long run, bad customer service will make reporting faults more time-consuming than a company with excellent customer service, sometimes you must pay for better service.
Number Of Lines
If your company has downsized or restructured, you may haveforgotten to reduce the lines you are paying for, this is essential if you are on an ISDN phone system. Why pay for more lines than are being used?
You may not be able to make changes if you are still in contract, however if you are past your minimum term, there is a chance you can make the changes necessary to hopefully save you money. You will just need to remember to do it as changes occur in your business with staffing numbers.
Call Patterns
Dependant on the length of calls you make, whether they are shorter calls or lengthier, you need to decide the tariff which will suit your call patterns. Fixed-line tariffs are most common for businesses, they are generally cost per call, or cost per time-based. If you are making lots of calls and currently paying per call, it is worth considering making the switch to cost per minute tariff.
Keep An Eye On Your Contract
As with most contracts, they have an initial term where you will pay a discounted amount on offer. After this, the cost is likely to increase for the worse, so it is recommended to review the additional cost prior to the contract’s initial term end. Doing this early enough is essential to give the telecoms supplier enough notice as it is not unheard of for companies to try to tie you in for the long term by adding longer notice periods.
Consider Switching To VoIP
Switching to VoIP is the future as ISDN-based services are aiming to be stopped by 2025, so in order to save money now, make the switch. VoIP will benefit by lowering call costs and allows you to freely change the number of lines required which is good for growing businesses, as well as if you are downsizing.
Or IP Based Phone Systems
The major difference with IP based phone systems is that they are providing huge flexibility, through being able to utilise it on premises or in the cloud. This gives your employees the opportunity to work from home or on the road, as well as in the office if required. The benefit being that your employees benefit from remote working, while your customers are not impacted by staff not being on premises. Make customer engagement simple with Gamma’s horizon – it benefits your employees by being a cloud-based service allowing employees to log into any device and work anytime, anywhere.
Save Through Productivity
The majority of what has been discussed is how to bring your telecoms costs down, however it is worth considering productivity costs at the same time. You may think about saving money on internet by having a slower connection installed. And while this may save you a small amount each month, it will lose you money on productivity as your employees won’t be able to work as effectively as they would with a decent connection. So cheaper does not always mean better, as it can prove negative on the company.
If like many businesses, it has been some time since you reviewed your telecoms cost, it is time you looked into it and used these tips to save your business money. The longer it has been since you have reviewed your telecoms costs, the more likely you have the opportunity to save as they are everchanging and you are likely paying more than you need, especially if you have had dramatic changes in staffing numbers.
