Don’t forget the zero use devices

When performing your rate plan optimization don’t forget about your Zero Use Devices. A Zero Use Device is any service with zero usage. Pretty self explanatory, but if you don’t monitor your bills these expenses can add up quickly.

You should include zero use identification as part of your monthly invoice auditing. What do you do with a zero use device when you find it?

• Cancel it. If you have little fluctuation in users (adds or cancellations), just cancel the service.
• Suspend it. If you tend to activate new services regularly. I suggest suspending the service and reassign numbers. This will help save on termination fees.
• Ignore it. If you don’t mind losing money, you could just leave it alone.

I’ve seen companies with as many as 250 zero use services. How many do you have?

The First Step To A Rate Plan Optimization

The first step when performing a rate plan optimization is evaluating your current spend.

What are you spending on voice plans and overages?

What are you spending on data plans and overages?

What are you spending on text messaging plans and overages?

After you understand what you’re spending, you need to evaluate how much you need. When looking at your voice, data and SMS usage make sure you evaluate the last three months. You don’t want to optimize based on a low month.

After you understand you’re spend divide it by your total usage to get your cost per minute, kb, or text message as applicable.

After performing this step you have a good foundation for your wireless rate plan optimization.

Wireless Rate Plan Optimization

Wireless Rate Plan Optimization is part of Telecom Expense Management focusing on a corporations wireless services. Wireless Rate Plan Optimization involves managing a company’s wireless rate plans to achieve the lowest cost per minute.

Cost Per Minute is calculated by totaling all voice rate plan costs and dividing the cost by the total minutes used.

Any large wireless program (greater than 700 lines) should actively manage their wireless programs and optimize the rate plans.  There are a few different types of rate plans and each one has it’s place in an effective wireless program.

Per User Plans

Per User Plans are like standard consumer voice plans. You pay $X and you get Y minutes. These are only beneficial for small accounts.

Flat Rate Plans

Flat Rate Plans are negotiated plans where your organization pays a flat cost per minute for every minute used (e.g. $0.07 per minute). Flat Rate Plans are better than un-optimized programs, and are only good options for an organization that won’t manage their wireless program. You can usually achieve two cents or more less than than a typical flat rate plan.  If your organization uses a million minutes per month, that’s $240k annually.

Unlimited Plans

Many carriers are now offering unlimited voice plans. You pay about $70 per month for unlimited voice usage. These are okay for organizations that average a lot of minutes (about 1000 per month). But, their best place is as part of an optimized program. By placing your highest users on an unlimited plan you are able to manage your shared minutes and drive down your cost per minute.

Pooled Plans

Pooling plans are the best choice for any large organization. Pooling plans allows you to buy minutes for the aggregate need, ignoring the individual user. Pooling plans also allow you avoid overage charges that you would experience with per user plans. By actively managing your wireless program you could be as low as $0.04 per minute (depending on the size of your organization and the number of minutes used).

If you don’t want to conduct your own wireless rate plan optimization there are providers that perform wireless consulting services to help your organization save up to 30% on your wireless services.