by Elizabeth Ducie

Created on: November 24, 2009

The variety of options for phones is extremely complex these days and we could spend all our time searching for the right deal. However, remembering that time is money, especially if we run a small business and are the main income bringers, it is all to easy to just go with the flow; accept the deal we have in place and get on with the business in hand.

The trick to saving money is to strike a balance between these two extremes. We shouldn't spend all our time searching for the best price, but we should invest a small amount of time periodically checking that we're working most efficiently.

Let's look at an example: let me introduce you to Nellie. Nellie is a small business owner; she is also the main fee earner, so she has many calls on her time and many priorities. She's had a mobile phone for years. Many of her calls are made when she is overseas, which can be very pricey. As a result, she has moved over to using VOIP (voice over internet protocol) for many of her business calls. This means she can talk to clients and employees, PC to PC, for free (or at least for the cost of her internet connection). This is great for international calls.

She also gets a cheap rate for calls from her PC to land lines or mobiles. So she starts using VOIP for most of her calls. She uses her mobile less and less; her landline is used mainly for incoming calls.

One Sunday, Nellie is talking to someone in the same country as her, via VOIP. She's praising the system as 'really cheap' and does the sum in her head to illustrate the point. Suddenly she realises she is paying, albeit at a low rate, for a call which would have been free if she'd used her landline. She also realsied she had no idea how much it would have cost to use her mobile.

Nellie cannot afford to have a key element of her business out of control. She decides to invest just a few hours reviewing her options. These were her findings and conclusions:

Landline

Her usage of the landline for outgoing calls is low, although she needs to keep it for incoming calls and as her internet connection. She is on the basic package for domestic use, with a special discount package for overseas calls. This package includes free unlimited calls in the evenings and at weekends, which she has not been using.

Mobile

Her mobile tariff is once again low for domestic use, with a special discount package for overseas calls. On talking to her supplier, she finds she has not changed her tariff for some years and there are some great deals

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