Telecom Audit to Get Refund

If your company has been in operation for two or more years, then it is time to have a telephone bill audit done by a professional consultant who is knowledgeable on the billing methods of the telephone industry. An audit will uncover service and billing issue that aren't always apparent when paying the monthly phone bill. Having this done early on enables your company being reimbursed quickly if there are errors on the telephone bills. These over looked billing errors can add up quickly, costing a company thousands of dollars. The company I work with found out because of other issues that they had been overcharged for years on lines that were not being used any longer, taxes, and long distance rates. The longer the time frame the more difficult it can be to have the phone company see their errors and getting them to pay the overages.

Many business change telecom vendors regularly in hopes of a saving, when they should be auditing their telecommunications services and systems to identify billing errors and opportunities to reduce costs while maintaining or improving service. If you do decide to change carriers it is a good idea to have an audit done first because you may be eligible for a refund from your current provider, but you may forfeit any reimbursements if you would cancel their service and go with a competitor.

Why should you use a trained Auditor? Well, I'm auditing a company's telephone bill that last year swapped out an old PBX phone system for a Cisco Call Manager. To do this complete switch over all of the new services had to be installed by their Telecom provider, which meant the company switched from analog lines to a PRI T1. Not until after doing the telephone audit did the company find out that it had been paying for service that it had requested terminated for a year. The company was able to recoup thousands of dollars from the provider. Most companies accounting personal don't have the knowledge or training to determine if accurately applied Federal, State and Local surcharges and taxes have been billed, thereby reducing your possible refunds.

Another point in favor of reviewing your company's telephone service is performing a traffic study to see if you have the right number of lines and circuits to properly handle inbound and outbound calls. Foolishly some company's method of doing a traffic study is to do nothing about their current number of lines until customers start complaining and there is nothing worse than not being able to get thru to a company most people if they can't get thru will go to a vendor with enough lines providing a good customer service. But on the other hand, margins are down and paying for unnecessary lines is not the answer either, a traffic study pays for its self.

There are many payment options available when employing a Telecom consultant to do an audit. They can either be paid by the hour, a set fee or the Consultant may opt to take a percentage of the refund.

Anything that makes your company give better customer service, profits high, and a little money saved it worth spending the money on a telephone audit.

Mike Stephens is president of Net Services Inc a structured cabling company in St. Louis Mo. To find out more about cabling for voice data and video see http://www.netservices1.com