In the first part of this article , we took a look at how easily it is for companies to ignore or overlook the charges on their cell phone invoices. Here we take a look at some of the less obvious charges, and what you need to look out for when deciphering your cell phone bill.
Add-On’s and Features
Many older rate plans usually offered an additional rate plan which provided a often much-needed single benefit or feature, such as: peak calling starting at 7:00 p.m., unlimited mobile to mobile, or unlimited nationwide push-to-talk (walkie-talkie). These add-on’s usually cost an additional $5 to $10 per month, per phone, and the salesperson usually convinced you that you ‘had to have this’. Since rate plans change constantly, the benefits from these older plans might now be included in a newer plan. But you have to understand what is included in the newer plans, so you can drop these outdated plans. And, if you have a large account, then you are looking at reviewing thousands of pages of an invoice, and reviewing hundreds of different rate plans. One recent review of a potential client’s invoices revealed 262 different rate plans – on an invoice with 1,100 phones. Many of these rate plans had the same name, but different features and benefits, which often adds to the confusion.
Seasonal Plans
Some carriers offer a seasonal or stand-by plan which allows you to pay a nominal fee of $5-10 per month to temporarily remove a phone from the regular voice and/or data plan (and the cost associated with it). This seasonal plan plan is often used when employees leave, or when temporary (seasonal) help is not needed, and therefore the phone isn’t going to be used for a while.
One caveat to these plans is that if you allow the phone to be on a seasonal plan for too long (usually six months), the contract for that phone will automatically renew for another 12-24 months – and the carrier will automatically switch you to a very basic voice plan at a much higher rate. And, for every month that you are on a seasonal plan, the contract for that phone is extended by one month. You should only use seasonal plans when you are prepared to manage their use effectively.
Billing Errors and Fraud
There are quite a few statistics floating around the ‘net concerning how many mistakes are on cellular bills. All you need to know is that cell phone bills contain errors, and you can usually find at least one in every invoice. The cost of the errors might not be much, but they can add up over time.
Fraud is a big problem for the carriers, especially on large accounts with multiple offices. If you don’t catch the fraud right away, it is difficult if not impossible to catch later, when that fraudulent phone number is in the middle of the 1,000 other phones on your invoice. And the carriers usually don’t do a very good job of catching fraud, given the fact that there are quite a few sales channels to monitor. Pin codes and passwords can easily be hacked or even ignored during the sales process. And, the carriers usually don’t try to ask you why you are sending 20 new Blackberries to that empty warehouse in Brooklyn.
Productivity Increase
The cell phone was supposed to increase the productivity of our workers – correct? However, very few companies actually analyze the cellular usage of their employees. Do you know how many phone calls are made during the day? And are your employees making calls to help your business, or are they talking with their cousin in Topeka?
Sure, most paper invoices will list all of the calls made and when, but it is extremely difficult to cross reference this information to see how many of these calls were personal and how many were business-related. If you get your billing information on a CD, you should be able to create a report that shows the percentage of calls made during business (peak) hours. You can even cross reference the information against customer phone lists and your internal company directory to weed out those employees who are using it for excessive personal use during the day.
Finally, many carriers will automatically block calls to foreign countries, but usually Canada, Mexico and some parts of the Caribbean aren’t blocked from the start. You should ask the carrier to restrict all international calls, and monitor your invoices for such usage, as a few calls to Mexico can add up to very expense charges. The same goes for international data usage – i.e. ‘data roaming’. One horror story is from a guy that went to a Caribbean island for a week, and racked up $2,200 in data roaming charges. The carrier is usually not going to credit these ‘oversights’.
Text messaging and instant messaging
If you have provided a worker with a cell phone, the chances are high that they will use it to send text messages (especially if they are under 30 years old). Some users may only send one or two messages a month, but we have seen instances where users have sent thousands of text messages in a single month. At $.20 per message, this may add up to several hundred dollars a month in usage charges. And, your wireless carrier probably won’t even consider removing these charges. You have to be preemptive and ask your carrier to block all forms of text messages before you give that phone to an employee.
But suppose that you give an employee an unlimited text messaging plan. Perhaps they are in the IT department, and they receive text messages when a trouble ticket is issued. So, their job description now requires that they have access to text messages. How do you know that of the 1,000 messages that they received (or sent), all of these were for business purposes? While a paper invoice will not have details on text message usage for each individual day (the total number of messages is usually summarized by the billing cycle), some of the billing CD’s will show you every single instance of text messaging – when and to whom the message was sent (sorry, none of the carriers will actually show you the message sent or received). You can then use this information to determine if an employee is being abusive.
High-speed (3G) data cards
High-speed data cards now make accessing the Internet from your laptop a breeze, especially for mobile workers or workers that travel frequently. However, most high-speed Blackberries and PDA’s allow you to tether your laptop to your phone in order to access the Internet. Instead of spending an additional $60 per month for the card (with a two-year contract and the cost of the card), you could have your mobile workers use their phones instead. There might be some cases where this isn’t convenient, and a card is warranted. But the ‘inconvenience’ might also lead to a higher level of productivity, as the mobile worker might not be inclined to waste time surfing the ‘net if it is too much of a hassle hooking their laptop up to their phone.
Dialing for information
When an employee needs a phone number or address, most don’t hesitate to dial 411 for information. However, with each dial, the call is going to cost your company upwards of $2.00. Instead of using your carrier’s 411 service, there are several free 411 services available that will provide you with the information you need, without the high cost. 1-800-FREE-411 or 1-800-GOOG-411 will provide you with the same information, and your only cost is the use of your cell minutes to make the call (some free 411 providers might make you listen to a 15 to 30 second advertisement). Or, your company may also opt to provide their own directory assistance services. There are several companies that offer this service.
Lesser-known features
Most carriers offer voice add-ons that can help a company cut down on their peak cellular usage. Offerings like “Mobile to Home” or “Mobile to Office” enable a user to make as many calls to a single or group of phone numbers without using their peak minutes. These plans are offered for a nominal fee – $5 to $10 per month. But, unless you can analyze an employee’s usage, you won’t know if you could save money with these plans or not.
Unlimited Plans
With every carrier now offering unlimited calling for $99.99, cellular service is finally on the way to becoming a true commodity. Sprint Nextel even includes unlimited data, text, email (except for Blackberry BES email), TV, GPS navigation, UFO tracking (okay, I made that one up) for $99.99. It will cost an extra $20 per month to use a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) . If you take into account that 1,000 minutes will usually cost $50-60, and unlimited data/email is $30-40 per month, it does make sense to switch your heavy users over to an unlimited plan. Of course you will have to figure out the minute-usage threshold and data costs on a per carrier basis to determine if you should switch or not, but the savings could be significant.
In the last installment, we will take a look at the equipment costs involved with a wireless account, how you can drastically reduce these costs, and how to pick a wireless expense management company.
Tony Darnell is the CEO of WideVision, a wireless expense management company based in Suwanee, GA. WideVision specializes in reducing wireless expenses for companies with 50 to 5,000 wireless devices.
Filed under: accounting, cellular, finance, Uncategorized, Wireless | Tagged: account management, accounting, AT&T, Barack Obama, Blackberry, business, cell phone, cellular, expenses, finance, George Bush, GPS, increase profits, information technology, mobility, Neal Boortz, Nextel, rate plan analysis, reduce expenses, Sprint, T-Mobile, telecom expense management, tony darnell, Verizon, Wireless |
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