Ways to Reduce Business Long Distance Expenses

Voice communications are the lifeblood for many businesses, especially if you are managing an outbound call center. When dialing out an excess of thousands of minutes a month even the slightest change of a per minute charge can add up quick and become quite costly. If you use an average (conservative) of 8,500,000 minutes in one month you may find you have paid in an upward of $350,000.00 a month or more.

You Need Business Long Distance

In today's economy you know you need to be more aggressive with sales calls but with that increase in demand you will find the increase in long distance costs as well and that means less ROI for the company which risks jobs and livelihoods for your loyal employees working hard to keep your business afloat. Even if your company is feeling fine with it's bills, it never could hurt to get the same quality calling or better for your business for less. It is important to remember that even if you do not not have as much call volume as a large sales call center, you can still save plenty for your long distance needs.

Saving with T1 Voice Services

T1 voice services were once mainly considered for use by only large enterprises however the costs of these services have since dramatically dropped over the past couple of decades allowing small and micro business entities to afford dedicated long distance services and save by bypassing traditional switched L.D. services. Even though switched providers now offer some very competitive low rates they still cannot match up to the per minute rates available for bulk minute users of T1.

Finding the Right Provider

There are different aspects to finding the right provider such as voice quality, setup costs (hardware, installation, etc.), per minute pricing, and more. As with many services you need to compare the differences to find a cost effective solution for your business. Longer contracts typically yield lower rates, as well as the amount of minutes you are committed to using each month. There are many T1 long distance providers so it can be problematic and cost consuming (paid man hours) to locate and compare the many different offers and contracts.

Having the Work Done for You

Part of saving costs on long distance calling includes not using endless man hours finding the right services. In most cases locating a telecommunications broker to do the leg work for you makes far more sense regardless of the capabilities of your organization. A broker or brokerage typically will not charge to locate services and are good at finding the lowest rates and best contracts regarding your company and it's needs. Actually, you usually save more by going through a broker than actually going to the provider themselves due to the leverage of buying power a broker has. This means lower negotiated rates, you do the math on that.

Calling Minutes

Remember to review carefully the billing increments, the Intralata costs, peak hour fees, monthly fees, minimum usage fees, and the service level agreement before committing to a long distance provider. By not carefully having your broker or yourself review this information, you can end up with bad service and even larger bills.