Phone costs have a habit of creeping up without anyone noticing. A line gets added for a new starter, an old office closes but its number keeps being billed, a contract rolls over for another two years. None of it is anyone's fault. It's just that nobody's job is to look.
So here's a quick check you can do yourself. Grab your latest phone bill and, if you can find it, your contract. Ten minutes is plenty.
1. Are you paying for lines nobody uses?
Look down the list of lines and numbers on your bill. Old fax lines, a number for a site you've moved out of, a second line that was added "just in case". If nobody can tell you what a line is for, it's worth finding out before you pay for it again next month.
2. Are there users on the system who've left?
Most modern phone systems charge per user or per extension. When someone leaves, their extension often stays. Check the user list against your current team.
3. Do your call bundles match how you actually call?
Some businesses pay for big bundles of minutes they never use. Others go over every month and pay out-of-bundle rates. Neither is good value. Compare last month's usage with what's included.
4. When does your contract end, and what happens then?
Many business phone contracts renew automatically unless you give notice, sometimes several months before the end date. Note the end date and the notice period somewhere you'll see them. That one date gives you more bargaining power than anything else on this list.
5. How many phone suppliers do you have?
If you've added sites, taken over another business or kept something on from years ago, you may have more than one phone system and more than one supplier. Each brings its own bill, contract and support number. Bringing them together is often where the biggest savings are. Our story about a care group that went from around 25 telecoms providers to one shows how it can work.
6. Are desk phones and mobiles separate?
If your team carries a work mobile and has a desk phone too, you may be paying twice for the same person. Many systems now let people take their office number on a mobile app, so a call to the office reaches them wherever they are.
7. Are you still paying for older-style lines?
Alarm diallers, lift phones, card machines and franking machines sometimes sit on older lines that nobody has looked at for years. Make sure they're still needed, still working and on a sensible price.
8. What happens to a call nobody answers?
Ring your own main number at lunchtime or just after 5pm. Does it go to a queue, a colleague's mobile, a voicemail someone checks, or nowhere? A missed call from a customer usually costs far more than the line itself.
9. Can you make simple changes yourself?
Adding a user, changing who answers a number, updating an out-of-hours message. If each of these needs a call to your supplier, and sometimes a charge, that's time and money you don't need to spend.
10. Can you read your bill?
If you can't tell from your bill what you're paying for, by site or by user, you can't manage it. A clear, itemised bill should be the minimum.
How did you do?
If you answered "not sure" to three or more, there's a good chance you're paying for things you don't need, or missing calls you didn't know about. That's very common, especially in businesses that have grown or added sites.
Want us to do it for you?
Send us your latest phone bill and we'll go through it with you: what you're paying for, what you could drop, and whether a different setup would make sense. No obligation, and no jargon. If everything's already in good shape, we'll tell you that too.
