At Valicom, our mission has always been to help organizations reduce telecom expenses, while also achieving transparency and efficiency within their environment. It’s this mission that has kept us focused for over 24 years, and let’s just say – it’s become quite a passion of ours. Just take a look at a few of our favorite success stories…
Today we share a few ‘gut-check’ steps to finding issues within your telecom expense management (or lack of management). Whether you have a telecom management solution or not, there are options to finding savings within your environment and processes. Take a look!
1. Take Stock
What makes up your telecom environment? What are you spending monthly? In so many cases, we have found that often internal telecom cannot even take a guess at either of these numbers. And those who do take a shot at guessing? They are typically 20-50% off of the actual number.
2. Acknowledge the Process
Now that you know what’s in your inventory, it’s time to examine the day-to-day processes associated with billing of these items. What are the steps taken monthly (quarterly, annually) to review telecom invoices, and process them. Are they approved by a manager, or just a quick scan? And what other invoicing is this person responsible for? Are they even qualified to be reviewing for errors specific to telecom? In other words – does the person reviewing the invoices know what to look for?
3. Cut the Fat
Turn off the devices or wirelines that are not being used. Here’s a story that is worth repeating. An organization had been mistakenly billed a building that had been torn down and turned into a parking lot… 12 years ago. Let’s just say, those lines had gone unused for some time. Ouch.
4. Request Credits
This step is where you’ll start to see the results of your efforts to reduce telecom expenses. Get on the phone to your various carriers to resolve and request credits for billing errors. Request credits for what you have been incorrectly billed for. Hate waiting on hold? Don’t waste your time being transferred from department to department. Our team knows the right information to provide to the carriers to have credits requested accurately and received quickly.
5. Manage Efficiency
Hand all of part of your telecom invoice processing off to our team. When you focus on your primary role, we can help maintain your level of optimization. It’s one less thing you need to worry or even think about. We’ll keep our eyes out for continued errors, and let you know if we see something that’s not quite right.
Looking for more resources to assist your organization reduce telecom expenses? Access our Resource Center for case studies, white papers, and live training sessions.