Mind your features!

Opening my personal cellular bill recently resulted in unexpected and unpleasant surprises. You see, I have twin 17-year-old daughters whom, like their mother, love technology…especially their new smart phones with all the bells and whistles. I did not caution them about price point cons for the games, ring tones, data downloads, music, wallpaper, etc. Big mistake. Even worse, I underestimated the amount of texting two teenage girls could amass in one month. Astounding and expensive.  I should have told them to mind their features!

You probably see where I'm going with this. You may be responsible for 300 or 1000 cell phones and need to manage texting overages, cute puppy wallpapers purchased, and AC/DC ring tones blissfully downloaded. But, do you really have the time?   I’m betting you don’t, so the potential savings go right down the drain each month.   

Of course, you have company policies in place that spell out allowed features but many employees can't resist the temptation of the VZ Navigator download or they simply either don't understand or choose to ignore their own corporate cell phone plan’s accepted features and limitations. Who has the time to peruse a 500-page cell phone invoice?   Who has the time to follow-up on every identified issue from one month to the next?

Here are a few tips for business wireless cost-reduction strategies:

1. Start by monitoring the monthly invoice dollar amounts. Huge overages should catch your attention but what about the more subtle   increases? Trust me, they add up quickly and can ruin your projected annual budget.
2. Make the simple change to electronic billing to take advantage of the robust reporting capabilities most carriers offer on-line. Set up your account and navigate your way through the vendor's on-line portal and you'll find a wealth of information at your fingertips: equipment charges, overages, plan information, everything you'll need to effectively audit your invoices.
3. Another solution begins with your Carrier Account Manager(s). Request quarterly reporting from them and set up your own parameters so you can get the custom reporting you need.  This is a time efficient way to monitor all cellular usage from your carrier.
4. Another suggestion, and my personal favorite, is to hire your own telecom expense management firm. They are trained professionals who take care of all the heavy lifting, follow-up, and nagging telecom annoyances you don't have time to take care of yourself.  Find a telecom expense management firm who will work with you for a productive partnership and flexible fit.   

Just a few easy ways to manage your business cellular expenses, saving you from the dreaded unpleasant surprise of overages, add-on’s, and everything in between. 

1. Start by monitoring the monthly invoice dollar amounts. Huge overages should catch your attention but what about the more subtle increases? Trust me, they add up quickly and can ruin your projected annual budget.
2. Make the simple change to electronic billing to take advantage of the robust reporting capabilities most carriers offer on-line. Set up your account and navigate your way through the vendor's on-line portal. You'll find a wealth of information at your fingertips. Equipment charges, overages, plan information, everything you'll need to effectively audit your invoices.
3. Another solution begins with your Carrier Account Manager(s). Request quarterly reporting from them and set up your own parameters so you can get the custom reporting you need.  This is a routine and time-efficient way to monitor all cellular usage from your carrier.
4. Another suggestion, and my personal favorite - Hire your own telecom expense management firm. They are trained professionals who take care of all the heavy lifting and the nagging telecom annoyances you don't have time to take care of yourself.  Find a telecom expense management firm who will work with you for a productive partnership and flexible fit.   

1. Identify Zero/Low Use Users: All wireless vendors offer basic billing summary reports that you can use to identify users who are using their device very little, or not at all. We typically recommend using a three-month accumulation of this data. These reports should be available through your corporate on-line access on your wireless vendor's website. Or you can always contact your account rep to request them.
2. Locate Zero Use Users: Once you start trying to track down zero use users you'll no doubt run into a percentage of users that no longer work at the company, have lost their phone months ago, or don't ever use it as it sits in their desk. You can get those disconnected right away. The rest of the zero use users fall into two buckets. Those in bucket one need their phone and you validated that necessity. Those in bucket two you couldn't locate. Which leads us to the next step.
3. Suspend: Now suspend the user lines that you were unable to track down (make sure your boss’ phone is not one of these). Those people who did need their device will holler at you for sure and it's usually quick and painless to get their phone active again. Those who don't make noise we'll assume they didn't' need it and this adds more to your telecom savings.
4. Low Use: Dealing with the low use users can be trickier. Talk to department heads or managers about reducing wireless costs. And by getting user reporting in their hands usually can motivate them to identify some of the low use users that maybe don’t need their device at all. You may even recommend device sharing among departments to further reduce your telecom spending.