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BT Business Customer Forever?!
Added: (Thu Oct 08 2009)
If you are one of those UK businesses that have been with BT for a number of years, then this article may be of interest to you. You may have delayed signing a renewal contract with BT, thinking that there may be other high-quality, but lower cost alternative telecom providers around? The short answer is, yes, there are!
The thought of having to plough through your BT one-bill, in order to analyse what you’ve got and what you’re being charged for, perhaps has put you off. From my experience, the results that can be achieved by completing a simple cost-comparison or benchmarking exercise are well worth the effort. Not only does it ring alarm bells for your current provider of telecoms services but, just as importantly, it may also identify a number of other high-quality and more competitive providers able and keen to win your business.
If you have had the same telecoms provider(s) for a number of years, you may find that a general review of all your telecoms services is long overdue. For example, you may have an old telephone system that has served your business well, but perhaps doesn’t offer the more advanced calling features that your customers (and employees!) have come to expect: voicemail, call recording, intelligent call routing and free calls between offices. The introduction of some of the newer voice and data technology advancements, such as hosted-voice (where the telephone system intelligence resides securely within the supplier’s network, rather than in your office), can offer significant productivity and cost saving benefits. As a review of your current and future telecoms requirements will take some time, let’s focus on saving some money in the meantime!
If you’re a BT customer and have a one-bill, then start by breaking down the line rentals, telephone system rental and telephone system maintenance (if applicable), and associated outbound call charges for each of your business locations. For each location, breakdown the outbound call charges by local, national, international and calls to mobile (breakdown the calls to mobile for each of the top 5 mobile providers e.g. O2, Vodafone, Orange, 3, and T-Mobile). Using this information, produce a summary sheet highlighting total number of minutes and call charges per call type destination.
One relatively quick and easy way of saving some money, and one that potentially involves no physical change or impact for your users, is to retain BT for your line rentals, but route your outbound calls via BT and onto a more competitive telecoms provider for call delivery. This is known as carrier pre-select (CPS) and can offer significant cost savings, typically in the region of 25%
Apart from reducing cost, this exercise will also provide you with an opportunity to get to know this new telecoms provider in a safe (and easy to change back) environment. If the relationship proves successful, then it is also possible to hand over the billing control of the BT line rentals (also known as wholesale line rental) to this new provider. Not only will this save you money on line rentals, it should also help to reduce the number of bills you receive.
These cost saving initiatives will provide your current telecoms provider with a well timed “wake-up call” and, even if you don’t make the changes highlighted, you should soon see a dramatic improvement in customer service, especially from your current provider’s sales team!
Simon Telecom was established in June 2009 and is based in London. The company provides impartial consultancy in telecoms - and specifically wide area networking - to business clients based in the UK and overseas.
For further information, please contact:
Simon Bradford, Director, Simon Telecom Limited
Tel: +44 (0) 800 046 7330
Mob: +44 (0) 7779 999 994
Email: simon@simontele.com
www.simontele.com
www.uk-wan-network.com