How to Reduce Cell Phone Bills for Businesses

Cell phone bills can become a huge expense for your business if you don't consider hidden fees and rate hikes. There are so many cell phone plans on the market that you can certainly find the one that suits your business needs. Yet, every so often you should check for new cell phone plans and upgrades at contract renewal times to save a lot of money on cell phone bills annually.

Here are some useful steps to reduce your cell phone bills for your business:

1. Estimate your company's usage

You can estimate your company's total cell phone usage by checking how many hours your employees talk on the phone and use text messaging and Internet services. Of course, if you have employees at different organizational levels using different cell phone plans, it may be a difficult process to sort out and estimate multiple bills. There are new data plans and new pricing plans very often and you have to do a bill audit on your cell phone bills on a monthly basis to keep a track on the payments. You can check for online cell phone bill assessment on Validas. If your business has 6+ lines you can get an automated plan analysis for $2.50 per line with an evaluation of your business cell phone plan and recommendation of less expensive plans. For 1-5 lines Validas offers several pricing options raging from $4.99 to $29.99 from 1 use to 12 uses.

2. Cut back on extras

If some of your employees are using Blackberries and you think it doesn't add any value to your business, cut them back. If some employees have unlimited plans although they are not using their phone so often, limit their plan's capabilities. Or, if some employees get regularly extra charges, limit certain capabilities. On the other hand, if a particular function such as multimedia messages is important to your business, add it to the unlimited plans of employees who really use such offers to avoid extra charges. Basically, the goal is to facilitate the job of your employees and encourage them to use their cell phone accounts while seeing your company benefiting from trimming cell phone bills down.

3. Make reasonable use of text messaging

Text messaging is typically cheaper than making a phone call. Even if you call less than one minute you will be charged more than sending a text message. However, text messaging can be really expensive if your employees use it a lot. Most providers offer text messaging plans that provide 400, 1000 or unlimited text messages for a monthly fee. Yet, even unlimited plans do not cover for premium services such as downloading third party offers from another business and you get extra charges for such services. Also, if you have a text messaging plan for 1000 SMS per month you get extra charges for each additional message you send or receive. Therefore, even if text messaging is cheaper than calling, it depends on how you use it.

4. Improve the calling behavior of your employees

Determine the calling of your employees and try to improve the parts that really don't work for your business. For instance, try to make them talk more during off-peak hours, if possible. If they have to call the client during peak hours, they will do that, but if there are phone calls that can be made during off-peak hours, direct them toward this alternative. Moreover, you can get a flat rate national coverage plan for calls outside your state. There are a lot of options available from providers. All you have to do is know what is going on in your business.

Cell phone bills can be really expensive if you don't search for alternatives. By reviewing your cell phone bills regularly and cutting back on extras you can reduce your bills and avoid extra services that your business may not really need.

Sources:

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/sep2010/sb20100914_239197.htm

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/47848/ways_to_reduce_your_cell_phone_bill.html?cat=15

http://startups.com/questions/31060/how-can-companies-reduce-cell-phone-bills-expenses