When Does Chasing $9.95 Per Month Cost you $300 or more?
I was on a conference call with one of my auditors and a client yesterday and we were reviewing what we’ve done for them these past few months. We covered topics such as growth strategy, category discounts, individual vs. corporate liable when an interesting topic came up.
“We’ve noticed a number of $9.95 monthly charges appearing on several of your cell phones, it looks like it is an applications download. Would you like us to do some research and find out who has been doing that and get you credits back for the service?” my auditor asked.
“That would be great, we tried getting refunds before but didn’t have any luck” replied my client.
“Yeah, don’t worry, we’ll get those credits back to you for sure” he replied and we moved on to the next topic.
Now, in this instance the total charges are small, they’re going to add up to a few hundred dollars for our client. Unless we find that those applications are business-oriented or are for “exempted” phones that are allowed to download such applications, we will make sure that it doesn’t keep happening and that the carrier credits our client’s bill.
If my client wanted to do this himself he could have. In fact, he indicated that in the past they had tried to stop it but wasn’t too successful in finding out the who and where of the information. These nuisance charges are in fact the very thing that “nibble” at a companies telecom budget. An application download here, a slew of text messages there, after a while it is overwhelming.
So if my client were to have an administrator to call the phone company, wait hours on the phone, go to the right department, ask for a credit (if they will give it) you’ve wasted their time trying to recover ten bucks but it cost you hundreds of dollars in lost productivity and employee dissatisfaction. What if the executive tried to get the credit? Or the highly paid IT professional? Now the waste goes into the THOUSANDS of dollars!
A telecom auditor isn’t a luxury, it is a MUST for any company who cares about the telecom bottom line. If you don’t watch it, hire somebody who will do it for you, like us.
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Benny Carreon is the President and CEO of GrayBear Resources Group. GBR is a next-generation telecommunications consulting firm. We aren't a telephone company's vendor disguising itself as a consultant. We don't sell carrier products that would conflict with out mission - our goal is to work for our clients by reducing costs, streamlining services, eliminating waste and fraud while providing the least disruption to your business.
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