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 In part four of managing your telecom costs, we talk about the Deadbeat. Not necessarily a person, but an asset. If you have phones/lines/pagers/devices that aren't being used, or are being used a whole lot less than you are paying for, then you have a problem. This is something else your telecom invoice auditing and telecom inventory management can tell you. Do you have too many phones? Too many wireless minutes? Lines that don't go anywhere? Each one you can identify is a place to SAVE on your telecom costs. Shut them off, adjust them, merge them, whatever you need to reduce business expenses. And note that a good telecom expense management software tool can make this a whole lot easier, as it has some visibility tools that take the work off your eyeballs. Next up in managing telecom costs? A good wireless policy. In other words, learning to say "NO".
As we covered in Part One and Part Two, we know we need a way to create visibility into our telecom spend, and we know we need to track our inventory. Now what......  When you're trying to manage business costs and reduce telecom expenses, a ripe place to look is at your telecom invoices. Maybe they are just going to accounts payable, getting paid and disappearing into the cosmos. No good. You need to get those babies and really LOOK at them. Otherwise, you're giving the telecom vendor a chance to run off with your money, and you're not even trying to stop them. Forrester Research estimates that “billing errors average 5% to 12% of ongoing telecom services budgets”. We would concur with that. In our 20+ years of doing telecom audits, we’ve found that over 35% of invoices have some type of error. And if you’re not watching for them, you don’t see them. Now an experienced telecom audit team member is going to be better at this than you are, just because they've looked at 10,000 of these things, but here are some items you can look for. - Does what you're being billed for match what you have?
(Hint, go back and look at that inventory you already set up)
- Are you paying what you contracted with that vendor to pay? This requires some legwork, but it's worth doing to make sure you get what you negotiated. (we'll talk about telecom contract negotiation more later)
- Did they charge you a setup fee you weren't supposed to pay? The same goes for taxes or line fees or any other nonsense that shouldn't be there.
- Did you get credit for anything you noticed previously and called them about?
- How about cancellations, additions, changes of service, deleted lines, etc. This ties into telecom inventory management. If you don't know what you have, you don't know what you should be paying for.
- What about slamming and cramming? Did you get switched to some other carrier, or is your bill full of third party services you didn't order? We hope not, but you better check.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of a real deep dive telecom invoice audit. But it's low hanging fruit and a key step in managing your telecom expenses. It just gets harder if you have lots of monthly invoices to look at. That's where a good TEM software or a telecom audit team could help. Just a thought. :) Next up? Separating the wheat from the chaff... identifying the deadbeats in your budget.
As we discussed yesterday, in Plugging the Hole Part One - the main challenge of telecom expense manaegment is to get all your data in one place so you can actually see what you're doing. Whether you're using a spreadsheet, a box of 3 x 5 cards (which we don't recommend for obvious reasons) or a telecom expense management software designed for the job, you need to figure out WHAT to put in there. WHAT do I have to keep track of to make this work?  Well, first and foremost is inventory. What do you have? And this is critical, as your telecom invoice auditing depends on knowing what you have so you know what to pay for. The POTS lines sitting around on desks, the smart phones riding around in your salespeople's pockets and the hefty data plans that go with them, pagers, cell phones, circuits.... all of it. Get it down and get it allocated by GL code so you not only know what you have, but who is responsible for it and who's gonna pay for it! Next up? Auditing - figuring out if you are actually paying for what you think you're paying for.... Stay tuned.
The research gurus at Gartner released a report today stating that the mass move of businessess to Windows 7 is going to mean a serious hit to IT budgets. The need to migrate from Microsoft Windows XP and Windows 2000 to Windows 7 in a tight time frame will create an extra budgetary and resource burden on companies from 2011 to 2012. “We estimate that large and midsize organizations worldwide will migrate approximately 250 million PCs to Windows 7, during the migration timeline..." said Charles S mulders, managing vice president at Gartner.
This spike in spending will come not only from expected software costs, but also from hardware upgrade costs and IT consulting expenses. And that money in your budget has to come from somewhere. Unless you have a giant pool of profits sitting around, which in this economy isn't likely, where is it going to come from? We have a suggestion. One of the best ways to make money appear out of nowhere is to NOT SPEND IT. Cut costs somewhere else, and re-allocate. It's magic, like pulling a rabbit out of your hat. And one ripe spot to cut business expenses is in telecom. If you can reduce telecom expenses through a telecom audit, or managing your wireless costs better, maybe find a few invoice errors that add up to savings.... then you can spend that money on some new PCs. Valicom can help you do that. We've been saving businessess money on telecom costs for almost twenty years. Want to know what we might be able to save you through strong telecom expense management? Just contact us for a free consultation and see if we can help fund your Windows 7 upgrade.
There are several models used by mid-market companies for telecom expense management. These models include manual processes performed internally, outsourced services, homegrown applications, on-demand software-as-a-solution (SaaS) solutions and on-premise vendor solutions.  Manual processing includes the use of spreadsheets and other labor-intensive processes to manage telecom expenses. Outsourced services involve a 3rd party that performs all or part of the end-to-end processing of telecom bills including processing and paying the invoices, auditing and analysis for savings opportunities, management of assets such as lines, circuits and devices, and providing deliverables and reports for informational purposes. Homegrown applications include the development of an internal database to assist organizations in managing their expenses. SaaS involves providing self-serve, web-based software and back-office services that enable corporate business analysts to perform telecom expense management in-house, implementing savings opportunities themselves. On-premise solutions involve licensed software that is loaded on a server at the customer’s premises for the purposes of managing telecom costs. So, what are the common approaches to managing telecom expenses today? To find out more, check out this link to my earlier blog on this topic entitled "Mid-Market Companies' Current Approach to Managing Telecom Expenses" or download Valicom's whitepaper entitled "Can TEM SaaS Solutions Lower Telecom Expense For Mid-Market Companies?" or register to stream a webinar sponsored by Valicom about this topic.
 Since the break-up of the Bell companies in the early 80s, there have been many new complex telecom technologies, services and plans and a variety of telecom providers that have entered the telecom space. With these complexities, come opportunities as well as threats for telecom users. One of the threats that has come with divestiture has been inaccurate billing, usually caused by the use of legacy billing systems designed to handle a basic, simple mix of circuits and services, and utilizing codes that were developed by the Bell companies around those services.
As more complex, negotiated rates and services have come about with more competition, there is a propensity for errors in data entry of contracted rates and for legacy billing systems to apply the inappropriate charge, most in favor of the telecom supplier. To make matters worse, in the past 20 years, there have been numerous mergers and acquisitions among telecom vendors requiring the merging of disparate billing systems. This has dramatically exacerbated the problem.
Telecom users in North America spend a significant amount of money on telecom services and equipment. Telecom services are defined as “fixed”(also known as “wired” or “wireline”) including local, long distance/800, conference calling, wide area network (WAN) and internet; and “wireless” including cellular, blackberries, PDAs, smart phones and pagers. According to Forrester, “typically 3% to 6% of an enterprise’s gross revenues are spent on telecom services with 72% of the average North American enterprise telecom services’ budget spent on landline and 28% on wireless services.”
These companies are challenged with the management of carrier billing that is complex and fraught with errors. Forrester estimates that “billing errors average 5% to 12% of ongoing telecom services budgets.” In addition, during the past 20 years of auditing telecom invoices, Valicom has found that over 35% of invoices have some type of error, discrepancy or overcharge in them. Based on this, it is prudent to err on the side of caution when auditing your telecom invoices.
To learn more about the best approaches to performing telecom audits and expense management functions for your organization, read Valicom's whitepaper entitled "Can TEM SaaS Solutions Lower Your Telecom Expenses For Mid-Market Companies?" OR go this link to download a streaming vido of the webinar sponsored by Valicom about this topic.
OK, excluding the wide array of jerky products, what’s the coolest thing about the 7-11? Easy: it’s ALWAYS open.
In all the hubbub over Telecom Expense Management, one subject that gets lost is the topic of openness. In other words, does your telecom management solution truly support the way YOU do business?
Asking a TEM software vendor to perform modifications is fine and, sure, sometimes a few tweaks are needed in order to ensure you can reach your strategic cost reduction goals and get the telecom expense analysis completed accurately and expeditiously. Still, there’s something to be said for understanding what your telecom expense management software was really engineered to do. Some specifics in this regard include:
- Does your telecom expense management system handle only carrier expenses or can it also house peripheral items like phone system leases, hardware specs, and other areas that should logically be grouped with telecom carrier expenses?
- Is your system equipped to handle your current account coding structure and expense allocation strategy?
- Is it flexible enough to adapt easily if your business environment changes?
- If you outsource telecom management functions, can your provider adapt to changing needs for telecom expense reporting and trending?
- Can your telecom software mimic the workflow your company uses to process telecom invoices and related data?
These are all key questions to consider in evaluating telecom expense management solutions and, again, openness is the key to the lockless door at the 7-11. -SAM
www.valicomcorp.com
With all the telecom carrier changes in the recent years slowing down, there are still a few recent items I'd like to share with you. - Qwest shareholders are currently discussing a decision on whether to merge their holdings with those from CenturyLink.
- Frontier just bought telephone lines from Verizon in 14 states.
- The Canadian government made a decision to open its telecom market to foreign investors. The Minister's yet written rules may bring big changes to the industry.
- Windstream will remain in Little Rock, Ark.
We suggest to watch for these types of Carrier changes to impact your billing. Whether it is as simple as a remit address change, or a major billing error due to a billing systems switchover it is always a good idea to do a telecom invoice audit and confirm your telecommunications is billed correctly. If you need help with your telecom invoice processing & payment, give us a call.
 Porsche just announced the possible release of a new hybrid model. A $630K hybrid! Now I'm all for going green, but that seems a little ridiculous. If all you're doing is driving to the mailbox and back, you don't need a ride like that. It made me think of some firms and the way they approach managing their telecom expenses. If you're a small to mid-sized business, and are drowning in paper invoices and trying to juggle too many wireless phones and data circuits, you do need some help. But really, how much help do you need? Many TEM firms out there take a kind of "one size fits all" approach. One size that fits great if you're a huge firm, or have lots of money to spend. If you just want a streamlined, fast way to get a handle on your telecom expenses, you need a tool, but you don't need a diamond-crusted one. In some cases, a hammer is really just a hammer. And we've got that hammer... Our Clearview telecom expense management software tool is designed to get you the functionality you need, at a price point that doesn't make your hair stand on end. Track all your telecom devices, have all your telecom invoices imported electronically, manage your orders and changes, store your contracts.... it's all there. But it sure won't cost you $640K. If you'd like to take it for a test drive, try our short online Clearview TEM software demo. That won't cost you anything at all!
At the risk of losing my man-card, I must admit that I know nothing about cars. I can’t recite models and I can’t change my oil. For me, turning on the air condition and radio represents a major mechanical coup. It is with this complete lack of automotive authority that I express my surprise at what I saw at a recent custom auto show I attended.  You see, I don’t really understand how putting in after market features like leather wraps on steering wheels and hanging dice fuzzy enough to make Elvis jealous are considered “custom” unless the eventual owner of the car is allowed to choose these features. In the world of telecom expense management, this same rule should apply. If you’re paying for telecom cost management software or any other expense management services, there are certain things that should be customized especially for you. For example, if you outsource telecom functions, such as telecom invoice payment, your TEM provider should provide your with payment feeds in the format your AP system is expecting. You should also have the ability to get telecom stats that are summarized in a report that has the format and data of your choosing. Insist that your software has workflow capabilities that match the way you do business. In short, demand a solution customized to your environment. Insisting on customization helps you in another way too – by drastically pairing down the list of telecom expense management companies with whom you’re willing to do business. There are simply not many of us out there who have taken telecom cost management and made it customer-centric. Call us and let us put the “custom” back in “customer”. -SAM
As you know, broadband internet pricing and speeds are a constantly changing environment. Whether you have cable or DSL, the pricing and speeds are improving all the time. However, these upgrades don’t always automatically apply to your locations with existing service in place. While sometimes, a carrier may upgrade your service without informing you, that’s not always the case, especially with DSL. When conducting a telecommunication invoice audit, it’s important that you engage the vendors on these improvement opportunities for cable internet and DSL. When reaching out to your vendor contact or customer service representative, inquire about improved speed options available at your location for a reduced or equivalent price. If you haven’t done this within a year, odds are in your favor. This effort can also succeed even if you’re under an existing contract for your cable internet or DSL. You’ll want to do some product research prior to reaching out to the vendor. With accurate knowledge of the current product your vendor is marketing you’ll often find that there are better speeds available for less money. This will give you the approach you need to succeed in a new contract negotiation, as the vendor will typically be receptive to an extension of terms for the new speed and price. This is just another way to reduce telecom expenses when conducting an audit, and you may get improved performance out of it as well.
Mike
Kick the Tires, Honk the Horn, won't cost you a thing....
 We know that you'd never buy a car without checking it out, looking under the hood and taking a test drive. And while Valicom, with our twenty year history and record client satisfaction scores, isn't exactly "Honest Al" over at the local car lot, we'd still like to offer you the same courtesy. In February, we led the TEM industry by releasing our third-generation telecom audit platform Clearview as a Software-as-a-Solution (Saas), giving small to mid-sized businesses a new tool to reduce telecom expenses. It can also be used by telecom expense reduction analysts or telecom consultants to help them deliver results. Now we've made it even easier to try out Clearview by launching a short online demo, so you can see just what you're missing. And Clearview is designed to do just that - give you a " clear view" of your telecom spend. Delivered securely online, it allows you to review your telecom invoices for errors, see wireless expenses - like mobiles phones and data plans, organize all your telecom assets in one place, track changes, additions or deletions, and in general make order from chaos. And in doing so, you'll save TIME and MONEY, which is really the whole point. So if you'd like to take a test drive of Clearview, just head on over to our website and we'll give you the keys....
Telecom Expense Management discussions inevitably breed discussions about expense analysis, telecom stats, telecom technology and a lot of other geek talk. But for the more ecologically conscious, another angle exists. Consider filing your telecom expense control program under the heading of “Green Initiatives”. How can this be, you ask? Well, any good telecom invoice management process, be it performed internally or outsourced to a telecom expense management service provider, should include a decided effort to convert as many paper invoices as possible into electronic format. This is easier to do than you think and yields tons of benefits.
Electronic invoices get processed quicker. This means more chance to catch errors before they become overcharges. It also means fewer late fees and less risk of human error. All of these things clearly will reduce telecom expenses on their own, but there’s more. A recent study by one of our nation’s leading universities has created a formula for measuring the environmental impact of paper invoice processing. Considering factors such as labor, waste, pollution, and other negative factors involved in processing paper, they concluded that there is an environmental cost of $1.14 per page that comes with paper invoices. Think about how thick some of your telecom invoices are and then start doing the math. Just make you’re sitting down when you do it. There are so many reason to get control of your telecom expenses, but if you can reduce expenses and do the right thing by the environment in the process, why not do it? Turn your company into a lean, green machine and give us a shout if you need help. - SAM
" Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Albert Einstein As we discussed in Part One of “Living in the Past”, businesses should strive to keep an eye out for new tools and technology that can make their jobs easier. And I don’t mean easier as in “I get to leave for the golf course half an hour early”, I mean easier like “We saved 30% of our telecom spend over last year, because now we can actually SEE what we’re doing”. Most likely that Excel spreadsheet you’ve been using to manage your telecom expenses and wireless inventory isn’t doing anything more for you now than it was five years ago. Albert would tell you that it’s time to move on… So you ask me, “If I ditch my spreadsheet, how am I supposed to keep track of all this stuff?”. Remember hearing about SalesForce.com, this great tool that is delivered via the web, and accessible from anywhere? Well, guess what. Just recently, that technology has been creeping into telecom expense management too. Via hosted solutions, or software-as-a-service, you can upgrade from spreadsheets to a fully functional, easy-to-learn TEM platform that allows you to view telecom inventory, track telecom invoices, manage telecom vendor relationships, get a handle on order change management and optimize your wireless spend… The options are as deep as you want to go. Imagine having a customizable dashboard that can display widgets showing exactly the data YOU want to see. You can even pull them out to use when you have to present to your managers or company board, or if you’re a consultant, to your client. Gain efficiency by keeping all your data in one place, and gain flexibility through users with various levels of access, so they only see what they need to see. Streamlining like this can save a ton of time, and as we all know ( Without Einstein even having to tell us!) Time = Money. And that’s really the only equation you need to know. 
Want to learn more about telecom expense management software-as-a-solution? Try a short demo of Clearview. With Clearview – you can see to the bottom of your telecom expenses.
“You can't do today's job with yesterday's methods and expect to be in business tomorrow”
– Unknown Most of us have probably heard this sensible business advice, but are you taking it to heart in your current work processes? Maybe not… We all know that it’s a lot easier to use tried and true tactics, going down the same path every day, rather than tackling anything different. Heaven forbid - you might have to learn something new! But the price you pay for stagnation can be huge. New techniques arise, best practices evolve over time, fresh technology comes out…. Your competitors are probably on board. The 25-year old guy in the corner cube who wants your office is probably on board. You better get on board too, or the boat is going to leave without you. So what kind of neat shiny new things am I talking about? Well, I’ll give you an example. A HUGE example. Granted, this doesn’t have much to do with telecom expense management or telecom invoice auditing, but we get to that in Part Two. This one tool helps to illustrate how the software-as-a-service technology is changing the face of business. Something you can use to automate workflows, and reduce costs for your business. But, this example is at work in your sales department… Ever heard of SalesForce.com? If you’re in IT or a CFO, I forgive you if you haven’t. But, if you work in sales or customer service, you’re in trouble if you don’t know. It’s only the fastest growing, most heavily adopted, and slickest customer relationship management tool out there. Best part? It’s web-based. Delivered online, real-time with a password, it means you can access your data from anywhere, anytime - even at 3 am when your flight out of O’Hare is cancelled for the third time. At a convention in Singapore? No problem. One click, and all your customer data is at your fingertips. On vacation in Costa Rica? Just log in and there are all the campaign stats for that email you sent out last Tuesday. Sure beats that crummy old rolodex sitting on your desk, doesn’t it? And with this new technology comes an avalanche of new best practices, tactics, ideas, collaborative plug-ins allowing access to third-party data and services, and so much more. Probably something you'd want to know about, and be using to save your business money, before Jimmy-in-the-Cube figures it out and you end up working for him. So, now that you get a taste of the type of tools available, stay tuned for Part Two to see how it can be applied to your telecom expense reduction tasks. Whether you’re an IT staff managing wireless expenses, a CFO looking for business cost reduction options, or a telecom consultant wanting a way to increase your capabilities while saving time and money, we’ve got a new toy for you…
Just had to write quick about this one thing..... I'll be quick. Promise. Telecom managers out there? Please take the time to review your vendor remit addresses. And please take the time to issue one check per account. Meaning, even though you may have 5 or 50 account invoices from a single vendor, and you're tempted to pay for all those accounts with one check, don't do it! Cut one check for each individual invoice, and I'll tell you why... Today I spent hours on the phone with a vendor - we'll call them "AT&T" for this purpose - straightening out a huge mess. Valicom recently took over bill payment for a client, so I pulled some reports and noticed that several invoice payments appeared to be missing. I called the client and asked if they had paid these invoices before Valicom took over. "Yes, Paid!" said my client, "Let me send you a copy of the cleared check." Check. Singular. Uh oh. I knew right away what had probably happened, so I called the vendor to confirm my suspicions... Sure enough, I was right. "AT&T" applied the entire payment to the first account number, leaving off payment of 30 other accounts. The result was a swarm of disconnection notices, late payment fees, interest on late payment fees and a very large credit resting on the overpaid account. One would think common sense would prevail in situations like this, but no. One would also think it very easy to correct this misbilling. Also not so. Not only did I spend hours talking to the good folks at the vendor, but I'll have to track every payment for awhile looking for the billing to be corrected, late payments to be refunded and make sure the credit is reversed. So it will take at least one billing cycle for this all to be working properly again, maybe longer. I'm guessing if you're reading this post, you're probably not in your company's A/P department. Maybe you're in IT/Telecom and would be working with someone in your billing department on a fiasco like this. That means double the labor to find a resolution, and then the additional task of monitoring the situation for over a month. Probably not the best use of your time! So make sure your Telecom Expense Reduction Analysts take the time to carefully audit each and every telecom invoice - to maximize your expense reduction - and then cut the checks ONE per invoice. The goal is to match Apples to Apples so the dollar amounts add up.... and the account numbers match, and the payments get applied right, etc etc etc... Otherwise, next time, this might be YOUR mess.... (Pssst - Need a good tool to help you manage your telecom expenses and telecom invoice payments? Try out Clearview... Even if you're doing it in-house, at least be sure you're doing it right!) - ST
Maybe the real estate market in your area is still in the tank but the fundamental rule of the game still applies: location, location, location. For businesses looking to reduce telecom expenses, location is also a significant consideration, except instead of three locations, we may be talking about hundreds. Any one location might perform its own telecom vendor management, invoice auditing, and telecom service procurement.. Or maybe they are not performing telecom expense control at all. Likely though, the telecom expense management activities in a multi-location facility are not standardized. As a result, your organization has no true enterprise-level telecom expense control going on. In short, you don’t know what you don’t know.
 What you need are answers. But how? Because of your distributed environment, you have no solid telecom stats. You aren’t even sure if you can get a hold of all of your telecom invoices to do a proper expense analysis. Basically, your telecom inventory is wildly inaccurate, if you have one at all, and you don’t know how to even start the process. To rectify this situation, you need to start gathering data. This means an accurate telecom inventory of everything you’ve got including landlines, data circuits, wireless devices, and all other telecom services for which you are billed. Once you’ve got the data, you need somewhere to put it and this means some sort of telecom expense management tool. Now that you’ve got data for all of your locations in one place, life starts getting a lot easier. You’ll have easy answers to telecom expense questions. Paying telecom invoices will become a snap, and the hassles and risks related to erroneous telecom invoicing are greatly reduced. But maybe the best part of all of this is that the increased enterprise visibility you’ll have will facilitate the establishment of organizational policy regarding telecom purchases and telecom equipment standards. You’ll turn chaos into order and will finally be able to say that you don’t need to know what you don’t know because you know you already know. You know? -SAM www.valicomcorp.com
Walking around here on a Monday morning, the passion that our telecom audit teams have for their job may not be immediately apparent. But quarter after quarter, Valicom surveys our clients, and finds an increased level of satisfaction with our ability to reduce telecom expenses. We have hit a record 3.79 score, as shown in our latest press release. However, this wouldn’t come as a surprise, if you knew our project management people. They don’t just care about wireless expense management or telecom invoice auditing, they care about the person on the other end of the phone. We’re here to solve problems for our clients, whether through our telecom management outsourcing, or via our new Clearview software-as-a-service. And that attitude IS apparent when you discuss day-to-day operations with our team members. You hear about projects and problems, true, but also about personalities. It’s obvious that there is a deep connection with our clients, a desire to help them do their jobs. We know that our key deliverables are cost reduction and expense management. We can save our clients money, resources and time, and that is increasingly important in the current rough economic climate. That good feeling - knowing that we are helping them make better business decisions and strengthening their bottom line - makes it worth getting up in the morning. Read more in our latest press release - Valicom Reports a Continued Increase in Customer Satisfaction Scores.
Over the last decade, most organizations have reclassified their internal telecom expense management as an IT function and handed the responsibility to an already overburdened IT staff that is generally not knowledgeable about telecom services. In addition, a well-managed internal telecom expense function involves a cooperative effort between the IT/Telecom staff and the Accounts Payable staff. This also requires streamlined, well-defined and automated processes. With the complexities of telecom services including tens, hundreds or thousands of monthly invoices, circuits or devices, using spreadsheets and other manual processes for managing telecom expenses has added to the challenges of in-house telecom expense management for most businesses today. This underscores the need for the automation of TEM processes whether in-sourced or outsourced. According to Gartner, “at the heart of any TEM offering is an automated software platform used by the business or by an external service provider managing a company’s telecom invoices and assets.”
There are also many market pressures that are driving the need for TEM investments for enterprises today. According to Aberdeen, these include “financial regulations (SOX compliance), implementation of new technology, globalization, carrier consolidation and security concerns (wireless e-mail/PDAs with sensitive data that is not centrally managed).” In addition, the economic climate is driving the need for cost reduction in areas that were otherwise ignored in past years. Because of these reasons, it is difficult for corporations to get their arms around their telecom expenses. According to Aberdeen, “most firms manage less than 67% of their telecom expenses.”
Clearview, Valicom's telecom cost management software, is designed to address today's market pressures and client's needs for TEM automation. The system workflow is built to incorporate best practices and tools for greater operational efficiencies, telecom expense control and strategic cost reduction. Contact us today for a free Clearview demonstration!!
- Sitting at a stop sign on my way to work the other morning, I quick grabbed my Blackberry and opened a new email.
The email was from a client from a large Broadcasting company. She simply asked for a copy of an invoice to be emailed back to her. Most respondents of the email might simply honor the request and send the invoice back to the requestor. End of story. Everybody's happy. Not me. The request nagged by brain for the rest of the way to work. WHY did she want a copy of the invoice? I felt like I was missing something; a bigger opportunity to help. I called my client when I arrived at work and sure enough - there was a great deal more to the story. What she really needed was some reporting. In great detail, she explained the project she had been given a week to finish. I could tell she dreaded the data compilation that was going to take her and her co-worker hours to put together. These are the phone conversations I have several times a day. I'm always thrilled when I am giving the opportunity to really get to the heart of a client's issue and provide a same-day solution. Enter Valicom's Clearview Telecom auditing software! I was able to log in quickly, and within minutes - pull the data she needed to finish her project. The best part was her response when she recieved the reporting from me. "Oh my gosh, you just saved us at least five hours of digging!" By the way, not only did we save our client's valuable time - but we also helped with Telecom Cost Management as the reporting allowed the company to make some very informed business decisions as it related to their cellular expense. It was my pleasure.
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