Telecom and Consulting Blog
Contract auto renewal trap
Working with an experienced telecom consultant can ensure proper services and contracts to serve your business completely - without over-payment or early termination penalties.A provider’s customer didn’t investigate potential updates/technology upgrade options for...
Unneeded and unexpected mileage charges
…client’s carrier initially refused to credit more than 90 days of the charges. Our investigation revealed that State law overrode that provider’s positioning, and the customer received a refund of $200,000.
Finding Billing Errors – Sadly, It’s on You
We’d like to think in this day of everything-is-automated, that billing errors would be rare, right? Nope. Everyone has billing errors. In the telecom world, it’s been estimated that as many as 60% of all telecom bills have errors. And spoiler alert: they’re not in...
Things Are Happening Behind You
Anyone who’s dabbled in outdoor photography has likely heard the phrase “look behind you” because we are always so focused on what’s in front of us that we fail to notice what’s behind us. In fact, if what’s behind you is a bear sneaking up on you, you’ll really want...
Keeping Your Customers
A Great story and a perfect representation of the overdue renaissance in customer relationships. For so long, many large corporations have been laser-focused on "getting" and not nearly enough on "keeping". I have worked with a great many clients who shop for...
Manage Mobility to Save Costs
Managing a mobility program in house can be like herding cats. Stolen/lost/unused devices. Ill-fitting carrier plans. Fraudulent or overuse of data. International calls. All these things can erode your profits and increase overhead. Our clients tend to pay 50% of what...
A Case Study in Savings
We just cut $400,000 a year in operating expense for a client. With multiple locations across the US, telecom is a large expense for them, with both land based phone and data lines, and multiple wireless devices for their work-at-home fleet. Our objective was to...
Critical Time to Manage Costs
Critical Time to Manage Costs by Eliminating Waste We are all experiencing unprecedented economic challenges in our business now. In a time of falling revenues, managing operating costs is more critical than ever. One of the most oft-overlooked yet simple places to...
Copper Lines Are Going Away
Copper is the X.25 of the voice world. (Remember X.25? Shudder) POTS, PRI and other connection types are going away. Not only can you not order new services on copper, you also will have a really sticky time getting support from the carriers, beginning…well, now....
Pro tip #3 Links in Unsolicited Emails – a Red Flag
Links in unsolicited emails are a red flag. In our current remote-working environment, email has become more important than ever. My own inbox has become increasingly the target of all kinds of “marketing” emails; people trying to sell me things I’m not sure I need,...
The Power of Small Things
At Natural Habits, we often talk about the power of small things: gestures, comments, or actions which can make an impact. We saw another example of this yesterday at the poultry counter in our local supermarket. A “please”, a “thank you” and a smile from Linda...
Communication Mistakes?
We were recently asked to give feedback on an email that had been drafted, before being sent. The opening paragraph was confrontational and accusatory, while the remaining paragraphs contained information supporting the sender’s position. This is a good example of...