Setting up a new company can be tricky, with staffing, set up and tech challenges to face the last thing you want to do is find that you’re overpaying for basic services. And, with more than 600,000 businesses set up in the UK last year alone, you are not alone.
Unfortunately, fledgeling companies can too easily blunder with their telecoms decisions as this is a specialist area which many cut corners researching amount the haze of setting up a business. This guide could help prevent you from paying more for your telecoms services than you need to and a free telecoms audit could help. Take a read of these top tips, simple yet
effective they could save you and your business a small fortune.
Accepting business and personal calls on the same phone
You might currently be in the habit of carrying two separate phones wherever you go; one for taking personal calls, the other for accepting corporate calls.
This arrangement can be inconvenient and expensive as you cart around two phones and pay for multiple contracts and insurance packages. You could instead switch to a dual SIM phone, as it is known; this would let you accept both types of call on the same device, or if you find you never switch off then why not just channel all your calls to one number?
Switching to a more flexible contract
Given the pressures that you might often face to keep costs low, it can be tempting to sign up to a telecoms deal because free installation is part of the package. However, if the contract itself is for three or five years, this could hamper your business in the long run – for several crucial reasons…
One is that the business could expand or move – and so land itself hefty penalties for cancelling this contract. Furthermore, you would be locked into prices that would likely decline in apparent value-for-money over time.
Moving into a dedicated, not serviced, office
If your business is a startup, it might make sense for it to use a serviced office to avoid making the kind of long-term commitment necessary with renting a dedicated space.
However, if a company running a serviced office would expect you to use its own telecoms services, those services could be much pricier than alternative deals that you could have arranged independently. Renting your own space could, thus, save you telecom costs in the long term.
Resisting always acting on “lowest price” deals
Some deals might initially seem attractive due to the attached “lowest price” promises. However, before selecting any of these deals, you should consider the small print, Bytestart urges.
You could find that, particularly in the case of line rentals, savings initially made would later be offset by call charges that are higher than you had originally anticipated. Furthermore, the telecoms provider might unhelpfully round up calls to the closest minute when calculating charges.
Switching telecoms provider
It can be all-too-common for people to run into problems with telecoms providers. Real Business reports about many complaints being filed against companies including EE, Plusnet and BT.
Unfortunately, many users accept poor service from telecoms firms due to how lengthy contracts can be. However, many firms offer relatively cheap deals for new customers – and this can make switching attractive. You could start saving shortly after receiving a free telecoms audit from the team here at Planet Telecom.