8 Quick Ways to Reduce Local Phone Service Charges

Despite all the new and emerging business communications technologies of the 21st century (VoIP, Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, Bluetooth, cell phones, blackberries, etc.) the majority of companies in business today still write a check each and every month to a local exchange carrier for a 125 yr. old technology - local phone service - (sometimes referred to as POTS, or "plain old telephone service").

Although it may be the same boring set of copper wires that connects to a standard telephone and rings when calls come in, the local phone service portion of your company's telecommunications bills is the perfect place to begin your telecom cost reduction efforts.

Here are 8 quick ways to begin cutting your local phone service bills. Check them off one by one when completed and you could reduce your local phone service bills by up to 10% or more.

1) Determine the proper local service plan for your needs - then regrade if necessary.

Many Local Exchange Carriers (LECs) offer three basic types of local service plans. Flat-Rate Service allows for unlimited calling within a local area at no additional charge. With Measured Rate Service, charges are applied to local calls according to time and/or distance and/or time of day. Message Rate Service which applies charges to each local call without regard to duration or distance.

Analyze your company needs through observational and personal surveys, then determine the most cost-effective local service plan. You will be amazed at the savings by simply implementing the appropriate plan for your company's calling patterns.

NOTE: When regrading from a flat-rate service plan to a measured or message rate plan, be sure that you are aware of the extent to which employees are making personal calls. Also, consider any lines that may be connected to frequently used services such as apartment door answering systems.

2) Remove unnecessary or unused lines.

Historically telephone companies have recommended and provided quantities of access lines sufficient to provide a P.01 grade of service. This means that no more than 1% of all callers will receive a busy signal during the busiest hour of the day. P.01 is appropriate for some situations, but it does result in many customers having many more lines than are necessary.

Take inventory of all the lines that are being billed, then track them down and determine their level of importance during day to day business activities. Eliminate lines with phone numbers that cannot be identified, lines that ring with no answer, and/or measured or message rate lines that show no usage.

For more advanced telephone traffic calculations, use , our online telephone traffic analysis program.

3) Remove unnecessary or unused line features and services.

More often than not, most companies have lines that contain features and/or services that are either not needed or are rarely used. The problem arises when features are added to serve a specific purpose or employee, then not removed when things change. Over time, many features may be included on lines and users have no idea they are even available.

Your previously conducted circuit inventory will help you determine the specific features needed for each line. Wire maintenance charges should always be eliminated. These charges can be as high as $6.00 per month for each line!

4) Block expensive pay-per-use features.

Directory assistance call completion, repeat dial and call return are nice and convenient for employees - but they will cost your company over time. These features can and should be blocked through your carrier immediately. If any of these features are needed, contact your LEC and ask if a monthly fee be paid for unlimited usage.

5) Review the summary section of your bills every month.

Nothing can take the place of a well-designed and systematic telecom audit of your entire telecom department. However, a quick monthly scan of the summary section of your local telephone bills will sometimes turn up "golden nuggets" of savings.

Common problems include: more than one long distance carrier included (slamming), bogus Internet charges (cramming) from companies other than your ISP, and directory listings that are not listed. These charges can run as high as $29.95.

To maximize savings, review each bill every month. Bogus charges will continue month after month until they are removed. And don't be surprised if they magically appear again in 2-3 months time after they are removed from a bill.

6) Consider upgrading to a T1 if you have more than 20 lines.

For smaller businesses, installing a T1 line into your PBX system can reduce your local telephone charges. A T1 can be cost-effective because it combines many outgoing lines into a single digital line that runs from your office to the LEC central office. The T1 can replace up to 24 POTS lines in your PBX. No one will notice a difference except maybe the person who pays the bills. In addition, a T1 can carry data as well.

7) Gather customer service records (CSRs) from your LEC for more detailed local service analysis.

A great deal of information can be found on CSRs that are not contained on your monthly billing statement. They are an invaluable resource when attempting to identify unneeded services and unused lines. CSRs reveal the quantity and types of lines, their PICs, service elements, hunting arrangements, wire maintenance, circuit termination locations, directory listings, and a host of other esoteric information.

Obtaining your CSRs from the LEC can be a painful and time-consuming process, but the effort is worth it in savings and credits that are eventually rendered. Some LECs will charge a fee issuing CSRs, but with some persistence, you may be able to get this fee waived.

8) Consider engaging a telecom consultant for telecom auditing, bill management or telemanagement services.

Time is money. If your staff is not prepared to consistently implement the above tasks, consider engaging a professional telecom consulting firm to handle them for you. Ideally, a telecom audit done first will turn up many areas for potential cost-savings. Then a monthly bill management program will keep bills clean and free from those pesky recurring errors.

At TelCon Associates, we have structured our consulting services for maximum savings to the client with no risk. We place our emphasis on details, timeliness and a high level personal service for our clients.

So get to work on reducing those local phone bills. You will be glad you did.

Karen Thatcher is President and CEO of TelCon Associates, Inc. a 32 yr. old telecom audit and bill management company. For free telecom cost-reduction tools and materials, visit http://www.telconassociates.com

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Battle of the Budget - An Opportunity to Reduce Operating Costs With Managed IT Services

Per Matt Dickerson, Managing Director and Senior Network Consultant of AXXIS Technology, and cited as one of the Top 15 Worldwide SMB consultants, "The typical small business or firm spends 30% of the I.T. budget on hardware purchases and 70% on I.T. maintenance." What are those numbers for your business? What do you use to measure those expenses?

The purpose of this article is to give you a potential option the next time you, or the boss asks, "What can we do to improve the business, while reducing the cost of doing business?" Grab your favorite beverage and let's take a quick look at I.T. Managed Services.

What is Managed IT Services?

A mix of products, services and other I.T. partner offerings used to deliver a full range of on-site and remote I.T. services to primarily the small to medium sized business. The service provider serves as the complete virtual I.T. department for the business.

This can include, but not limited to, initial I.T. planning and implementation, to ongoing technical support and administration, to budgeting to ensure that the information technology backbone stays in step with the businesses current and future needs.

What are the services?

All providers have differing services and solutions that they provide and, this is important, how they provide them. Below are examples of the basic services. If you are researching a I.T. Managed Services partner and they do not provide these, continue your search!

7/24/365 Network Monitoring, Maintenance, & Support

This is at the core of what each and every I.T. services company provides the business. Your information and the needs and expectations of your customers are too important to call somebody and wait 24 to 72 hours or more for an I.T. issue to be resolved. How do you effectively plan and budget for these out of the blue situations anyway? Your IT services provider should be constantly monitoring your systems, providing maintenance, such as spyware and virus protection, disk drive analysis, application usage, and security patch management. A big one for most businesses: have off-site and on-site support available around the clock. No guessing game or "around this much" - there should be a fixed fee for the services.

I.T. Systems Planning and Analysis

Many business owners make I.T.-related decisions as a reaction to their immediate needs rather than part of a long-term growth plan. Your provider should assess your current and future I.T. needs and make recommendations to help your business grow. The idea is for every component of your business to be geared in some way towards growing your business. This should include I.T., right?

Disaster Protection/Offsite Data Backup

There are plenty of recent examples to confirm for us that you have to plan for the unexpected. Your customers depend on you to serve them without interruption. Your I.T. services provider should provide secure offsite data backup solutions that provide a backup of your data automatically. You have a business to run. Your I.T. services provider should partner with you to develop and implement a disaster recovery plan that you or your staff won't have the hassle of managing.

I.T. Vendor Management

Should you or your staff spend endless hours on the phone with I.T. vendors, or rather, dedicate time and effort to growing the business? Your IT services provider should be there to help you manage your relationships with your ISP, hardware vendor, web developer, ASP, etc...

Network Services

I have yet to meet or work with a business, large or small, that doesn't go through some kind of periodic "environment changes". This can range from staff changing desks, switching offices, or moving the entire business to a new location. Make sure your I.T. services provider takes care of the I.T. aspects of these changes. If you are moving or setting up a new network, task your I.T. services provider with designing, installing and certifying your data network. Make sure they are capable of taking care of the telecom, cabling, and I.T. equipment installation.

Regulations and Compliance

At the beginning of this century, we in the healthcare industry went through a "regulations crisis". The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) came down and the mad scramble and focus was on how to secure the system-housed information and ensure we were all in compliance. As HIPAA is to healthcare, other businesses have rules and regulations on how to use and secure information. Your I.T. services provider must have the knowledge, experience, and resources to aid you in remaining compliant with these directives.

Website design and hosting

Whatever your position on the degree of benefit to the internet, the reality is that many businesses and consumers use the internet as the first step in getting info on your business. Your I.T. services provider should have the tools available to work with you on developing and managing a website that can serve as "the front porch to your business". While having a great website will not necessarily be used to rule you in as the business to call, having a substandard or non-existent website can be used to cross you off the list.

Discount Product Purchasing

I.T. equipment is often an expensive investment. Regardless of the amount you purchase, you should never pay more than absolutely necessary. Your I.T. services provider should have agreements in place to ensure you get the best, most competitively priced complete systems, peripherals, parts, or upgrades.

What are the benefits?

You now know what the typical managed services company provides or should be offering, but what do you really get out of this partnership? After all, change is difficult and everyone is comfortable with the way we've always done things, regardless of the costs, the impact on the business, or how we might be getting short changed on services.

Focus on Business

You and your people are experts and great at what you do. I've spoken with business leaders who give examples of staff members trying to fit I.T. guru into their responsibilities. I've heard, "One of our staff lawyers, Joe, does our I.T.", "Pat, in Accounting, does the I.T. stuff that she knows.", "My HR Director, Tom, studied programming in college and does our I.T." I never doubt that these people give their best efforts, but question if that's the best use of these valuable resources and I am skeptical if everything is getting done.

Single Source for I.T.

You have one point of contact for all of your Information Technology needs. Rather than a laundry list of contacts and phone numbers, you have one source for your I.T. Note: Check on this! Most premier IT services providers will have a single point of contact who will know you, your business, your goals, and your I.T. infrastructure. If you don't know who has your account, you are always speaking with a different person on the phone, a different technician comes out to your business to do service, well, it is time for you to ask probing questions or search for a new provider.

Budgeting

The guesswork is gone. As you formulate your budgets, you will know exactly what your I.T. expenditures will be for any period of time. You work with your I.T. services provider to formulate and define your plan, needs, and expectations. The dollar figure is assigned and you work on producing results in your industry.

Breadth of Knowledge: We all know the growth rate in the I.T. industry has been phenomenal and new technologies and gadgets are constantly being added to the inventory. While most businesses have team members who specialize in a particular facet of the company, I.T. Managed Services companies also have staffs that have expertise throughout the I.T. spectrum.

It is near impossible, and not very cost effective, for SMBs to employ an in house I.T. staff with the same cumulative breadth of I.T. knowledge. This leaves the questions for the business with the in house I.T.: What are we incapable of doing? What is getting missed? For businesses without I.T., it makes sense to avail themselves in having an entire I.T. department at their disposal without the costs or impracticality of an in house I.T. department.

Anybody there?

Getting back to the level of support topic, having an I.T. services provider ensures that you maintain a predictable, consistent level of support, regardless of vacations, sick time, resignations, terminations, etc., associated with in house I.T. Apart from this, most I.T. services providers have a form of supplemental support where they will work with you during times when in house I.T. is absent or there is an increased workload.

If 30 minutes would help my bottom line...: Every successful business leader, whom I've worked or spoken with, is looking for ways to improve and keep their business ahead of the competition. Some businesses have an in house I.T. department or retain their current support and services provider, because, well, that's the way things have always been done. Some businesses prefer the "Las Vegas approach" of no I.T. support at all. They cross their fingers, roll the dice daily, and hand over the money as they go along.

I encourage you to do some due diligence, even if it takes 30 minutes. Research, discuss internally, and engage an I.T. Managed Services professional to see if I.T. Managed Services would possibly benefit you, your staff, and your valued customers.

Bill Culhane writes for Mission IT Services. Mission IT provides Austin IT Support and IT services for small businesses across Central Texas.

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Technology Service Bundles Reduce Cost to the Consumer

Most people these days use the Internet for finding information on things, shopping for things and taking care of the mundane chore of paying their bills. They also use it to seek out the best deals on products and services.

Search engines make finding what you're looking for much easier than in the good ol' days of using the yellow pages. Whereas the yellow pages are fine for local listings, the world wide web opens international doors. Simply type in the keyword term, for what you want, and BINGO! you have a wealth of information right in front of you. However, it may take some time to weed through all of that information, to get at what you want out of it.

Consider these technology service related keyword examples and the results they yield on Google:

* Home Office Supplies: 450,000,000 results

* Satellite TV: 61,900,000 results

* High Speed Internet Access: 123,000,000 results

* VOIP: 112,000,000 results

* Long Distance Services: 67,000,000 results

* Internet Conferencing: 40,600,000 results

* Web Hosting: 295,000,000 results

* Home Security Systems: 481,000,000 results

If a person wanted to comparison shop for these technology services, they would spend days, even weeks, going through all of these results, in order to find the best deal on all of these services. And the businesses selling these services are hard pressed to get into the top 100,000 of these listings, because there is so much competition.

Because of the amount of competition for individual keywords, many online businesses are attempting to create an edge over their competitors by offering multiple services, or bundled services, under one roof. By doing this, they can generate more income for themselves, and provide an environment of customer loyalty.

Take for example, insurance companies... Most major insurance companies offer more than a single type of insurance. Allstate insurance doesn't just offer home owners insurance any more. They provide discounts to their customers who purchase more than one type of policy. For instance, you can get your home owners, auto, identity theft and other policies from them, making your life easier, your premiums smaller, and generating a larger account for Allstate. They give you more options; you buy more insurance. It is win-win for both the consumer and the company.

Another example of this is seen in consumer goods purchasing. Consumers can save time and money by going to a discount store, such as WalMart, over a department store. First of all, at the large discount store, a person can buy a wider variety of products, eliminating the need to go from specialty store to specialty store, for what they need. The company itself can buy in greater volume, reducing their own cost, and then pass that savings on to their customers.

This type of service bundling is no longer the exception in business. It is becoming more the rule and it is expanding to cover a whole new realm of consumer products and services, technology services being one of the largest.

Today, the companies who can offer a wide range of services, or access to service providers are going to become the front runners in affordability. Not only that, but they are going to be able to capture more business than their single item competitors, because they will be able to tap into multiple keyword searches, rather than simple searches for individual items.

Taking the keyword examples above; if someone were looking for information on high speed Internet access, satellite TV, and long distance services, individually, most would either give up just because the sheer numbers of results would overwhelm them into just sticking with what they've got, or only looking at the first few pages of results, and opting for the best deal out of those. This is particularly damaging to companies who may have the best deal to offer, but don't appear in Google's indexing until page 100, or so.

To make it easier on consumers and to exercise better SEO, companies are offering multiple services, grouping similar services under one domain. And the large corporations are subbing out services to smaller, independent brokers, to take advantage of the concept themselves.

As an example, there is a companies that has effectively bundled high demand services together, making it easier for consumers to comparison shop from their single location. The services they offer are specific to certain markets without being isolated to a single market.

Find services grouped together technology services such as:

Local / long distance services

High speed Internet access

VOIP

Bundled business services

Internet conferencing

Web hosting

Home office supplies and services

Satellite TV

Home security systems

Wireless / cellular services

By doing this, they have made it easier for the person looking for these services to get them without spending days and weeks pouring through millions of search results. They have everything that a person could possibly be looking for in the area of technology services in one place.

They have taken advantage of the multiple keyword search system and have partnered with other reputable companies to provide both the best in products and customer service.

Let's have a look at some of the technology services they are offering and the companies who they've partnered with.

* Local/ long distance services -- GTC Telecom

* High speed Internet access -- Adelphia, Bell South, Charter, Comcast, Earthlink, to name a few...

* VOIP -- Packet 8 (8x8 Inc.)

* Bundled business services -- Qwest

* Internet conferencing -- Go Solo

* Wireless/ cellular services -- AT&T, Cingular, Nextel, T-Mobile, and others...

* Satellite TV -- Dish Network

* Home security systems -- Protect America Inc.

Remember the individual search results listed above? They were all in the hundreds of millions. Well, if you type this string: home security systems, satellite tv, high speed internet access, voip, long distance services, into a Google box, you will reduce the results to 360,000. That is a significant reduction.

Another benefit that companies like is an opportunity for customers to earn an additional income as an affiliate reseller of these services. Doing business this way not only brings the cost of services down, but also provides a bonus for those who are interested in referring new customers. Pick the right one here and remember it takes many many customers to make any real amounts of money to go on your own. I think ACN was about 5000 customers if I remember it. If you bundle your services pay by a rewards or miles card to earn points / frequent flyer miles for you daily purchases.

Income opportunities like these actually reduce the cost that consumers pay for their services, because it reduces the advertising costs to the company itself.

For the consumer, this new trend in bundled services is a boon. Look for companies who offer multiple services and save time, effort and money.

The choice is yours.

© Robert Carey

Proud Mentor

Saddle River, NJ

201-887-7966

CEO- [http://www.Cash-for-You.net]

[http://www.LiquidEnergyStore.com]

SKYPE - rcareynj

"Helping people reach their goals is my goal."

Robert Carey has been helping businesses grow, mature and expand for over twenty years. Mr. Carey is now an Business Consultant for one of the Top Consulting firms. He also has several online businesses which provide goods and services making people's lives easier. Mr. Carey uses what Corporate America taught him for over twenty years and uses these same skills with his consulting clients and his home based students. Mr. Carey is a sought after speaker teaching the finer points of running a successful business in our "ever changing" global economy. He also works from home part time marketing Health and Wellness supplements.

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