Reducing Business Call costs
Discussion
We spend a lot of money with BT at the moment on Business phone calls and Broadband. Having just spent time looking into ways of reducing the cost of my private calls and broadband there seem to be a number of providers that can now offer very low rate or free calls either via the net or by paying a fixed monthly cost.
Has anyone here looked into the possibility of using one of these options to reduce business call costs? if so your advice would be much appreciated!
Has anyone here looked into the possibility of using one of these options to reduce business call costs? if so your advice would be much appreciated!
We have a BT Business plan which caps ALL calls international/mobile/national rate at 10p a call.
You need to have a committed spend of something like 600 a quarter to qualify (that amount is a total guess).
We get cold calls a couple of times a week promising to save us money on our phone bill. As soon as they find out we are on a capped call rate they all scuttle off with their tails between their legs.
Probably worth giving BT business sales a call. I find with BT if you ring them up every now and then you can always get a bit of money off. We halved our leased line costs a while back, all it took was a call.
You need to have a committed spend of something like 600 a quarter to qualify (that amount is a total guess).
We get cold calls a couple of times a week promising to save us money on our phone bill. As soon as they find out we are on a capped call rate they all scuttle off with their tails between their legs.
Probably worth giving BT business sales a call. I find with BT if you ring them up every now and then you can always get a bit of money off. We halved our leased line costs a while back, all it took was a call.
Be VERY wary of certain business plans from B@sT@rd phone companies. Their minimum call spend is variable, but they always try to set it to about or slightly above your current call spend, so unless you increase your usage,you don't save any money. At the end of the year, they can make an exhorbitant extra charge for not making enough calls, more than wiping out any savings. I had this last year, but argued with them on the above issue, stating that I felt I had been mis sold the product. They quickly backed down.
For a no nonsense approach, get in touch with YellowCall on 01929 480444.
For a no nonsense approach, get in touch with YellowCall on 01929 480444.
Edited by octanebooster on Friday 21st July 11:04
Edited by octanebooster on Friday 21st July 11:11
_dobbo_ said:
We have a BT Business plan which caps ALL calls international/mobile/national rate at 10p a call.
You need to have a committed spend of something like 600 a quarter to qualify (that amount is a total guess).
We get cold calls a couple of times a week promising to save us money on our phone bill. As soon as they find out we are on a capped call rate they all scuttle off with their tails between their legs.
Probably worth giving BT business sales a call. I find with BT if you ring them up every now and then you can always get a bit of money off. We halved our leased line costs a while back, all it took was a call.
You need to have a committed spend of something like 600 a quarter to qualify (that amount is a total guess).
We get cold calls a couple of times a week promising to save us money on our phone bill. As soon as they find out we are on a capped call rate they all scuttle off with their tails between their legs.
Probably worth giving BT business sales a call. I find with BT if you ring them up every now and then you can always get a bit of money off. We halved our leased line costs a while back, all it took was a call.
BT Business Plan Doesn't cap all international Calls at 10p although it does cap local and national calls, any telesales bod who runs away because of it is pretty poor at there job - as a deal BT Business Plan is pretty crap (although you do get some nice incentives if you are having lines installed from scratch) Essentially for every call you make there is a connection fee of 2p (This is also applies to a hell of a lot of other companies like 118899) their rate is about 2.5 p per minute (Depending on spend) and so a one minute phone call costs 4.5p (which is a hell of a lot) However a 10 Minute Phone call will only cost you 10p (which is very cheap) The point I am making is you never get anything for nothing and BT are using the short calls to pay for the long ones, if you are like the 99% of other business out there you will be making far more 1 minute Phone Calls than you do 10 Minute calls.
The kind of deal you want to be looking for is not one that caps the rate but one that has no minimum call charges or set up fees - this is incredibly important if you have a Telesales Department. I used to sell call charges and in my time doing it I have met people using Business Plan whose average cost per minute was in the region of 5 - 7p per minute for local and national calls, Bearing in mind at the time I was at 1.8p (no minimum etc.) the savings were colosal (thats a 74% saving) the cost with no minimum should be down in the region of about 1.5p now.
Oh and never sign any contract where the rates are dependant on meeting a specific call spend cos as mentioned it will bite you in the arse.
andoverben said:
BT Business Plan Doesn't cap all international Calls at 10p
It does for us, except for "premium" numbers. I even just checked a bill to confirm it.
It may be that we are the exception rather than the rule but we have saved thousands of pounds by moving to the business plan, minimum spend and all.
We have had MANY call providers offer to save us money, and if we fax our bill to them they will tell us how much we can save.
Every single one has failed to be able to save us a penny.
So whilst the business plan does have it's pitfalls, as long as you are not an idiot you don't need to get caught out. When I signed us up, I did some basic maths in my head - even if we didn't meet the minimum spend, even with the fines we would still have saved money overall.
But we easily met the minimum, and BT have since dropped it.
Don't mean to sound like an advert for BT, just want to make sure accurate information is given out!
Edited by _dobbo_ on Thursday 27th July 10:23
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