Smart businesses are always looking for ways to cut costs, and a great way to lessen your monthly expenditures is to trim some fat from your telecommunications bills. No matter how big of a company you are, your telecom charges are likely higher than they should be. Thus, the more effort you put into telecom cost reduction, the greater the return on your investment.
A great first step is to perform a telecom bill audit. Duplicate charges, overbilling, and charges for services you don’t even have or don’t use result in higher telecom expenses that can be easily remedied.
Additionally, a telecom expense management (TEM) campaign can yield even higher savings on an ongoing basis – especially if your organization includes multiple locations and many different providers.
Technology is becoming more advanced, but many times the costs rise as well. Let’s take a look at three best practices you should champion to achieve true telecom cost reduction for your business.
Avoid Paying for Services You Don’t Need
Companies don’t want to throw money away on products and services they don’t need. Wasted expenses can be a drag on the bottom line of any business. In order to achieve telecom cost reduction, a good tactic is to get a full understanding of the invoices you receive every month.
Survey all of the different products and services that you’re paying for. Audit your invoices to determine whether or not you’re being charged correctly. You’d be surprised at how many businesses pay inaccurate bills every month. In the end, you should be able to understand your bill and only pay for what you actually use.
Optimize Telecom Costs
Telecom cost reduction is a great way to help increase profits and the bottom line of your business. Companies often cut staff in order to save money and try to improve profit numbers; they often don’t realize the same amount of money could be saved by optimizing what they’re spending on telecom services.
Get a full understanding of the vital telecom services your company needs to stay up and running. Anything that is extra and unnecessary can be cut. These savings go straight to your bottom line – reducing expenses, increasing your margin, and growing your profit.
Challenge Your Telecom Vendor
Companies should not be afraid of challenging their telecom provider on what they’re providing for services and products. Send a request for proposal to the other vendors in the market and see what they can offer. This could give you some leverage over your current service provider to gain a better package or price point.
Telecom cost reduction tactics are enacted to save your company as much money as possible. Many companies waste money on inaccurate invoices, pay for products and services they don’t need, or just pay way too much money. No matter how you slice it, any steps that you can take to cut these costs are going to make your company much healthier in the future.
We’re Here to Help
If your organization is knee deep in telecom bills and you’re not 100% sure you’re paying exactly what you should be, we can help. Contact us today and we’ll get you started with an audit and discuss providing ongoing TEM to ensure your savings continue for years to come.
This blog was previously published on May 20, 2014 and was updated on July 5, 2021 to reflect new findings.