Managing Telecom and Cellular, and Drinking Coffee

Based on experience with upper management in accounting and IT, we see the difficulty of broad responsibilities vs. limited staff time. A busy department means it's plausible that your telecom and cellular don’t get sufficient attention, which results in unnecessarily higher costs.

You and your staff can invest the time to solve the problems to lower monthly costs, but you may need to drink several cups of coffee.

There have been discrepant findings on the association between coffee consumption and risk of incident heart failure. Doctors of the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Unit at Harvard Medical School wrote an article that appeared in "Circulation: Heart Failure," which is published by the American Heart Association.

Doctors and researchers concluded that moderate coffee consumption is inversely associated with risk of heart failure, with the largest inverse association observed for consumption of 4 servings per day. Four servings per day is about two large cups of coffee at the popular coffee chains.

Find the published article at http://circheartfailure.ahajournals.org.

Go ahead and drink the coffee. Call your doctor to manage risk of heart failure.  Call CMS to manage your telecom and cellular. (503) 972-9999.  Click here for one page overview.

US Senator Underscores the Problem of Cramming

Bloomberg Businessweek reported that Verizon Communications agreed to stop unwanted charges from third parties on customers’ landline telephone bills. The practice is known as cramming.   

Third-party billing through landline telephone bills was a $2 billion industry in 2011.  U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Commerce Committee, said that a large percentage appeared to be unauthorized.  

Senator Rockefeller identified the problem: “Telephone customers have been tricked into paying for third-party services they didn’t want, or use, or even know they were being billed for.” 

CMS solves the problem of cramming, and other telecom and cellular issues.  Senator Rockefeller is not a paid spokesman for CMS.  Click here for overview. 

Free Service is Expensive

The logical part of your brain gives you the message: Distrust interested advice.  Anyone who wants to sell telecom or cellular services to you is biased, because they will get paid by the carrier, not by you.  They offer interested advice.

It's financially healthy to be a skeptic at this point.

You are told by your sales agent, "We are carrier neutral, and we represent all carriers equally."  Really?  All carriers?  Equally?  Do all carriers pay the same commission rates and sign up bonuses?  There is a built-in conflict of interest with commission-based advice.

"Free service."  You get what you pay for.  The carrier gets what it pays for.  Does it make sense to have a sales agent manage inventory and scrutinize the bills on which they receive commissions?

It is simple.  If your objective is to simultaneously: 1) Reduce your hard-dollar costs, 2) Offload at least 90% of your telecom and cellular administration and accounting, 3) Gain and keep 100% accuracy of inventory, invoices, contracts, expense allocation for all locations; then the seven functions of telecom management must be diligently completed.  Click here for the 7 services.

It's natural for people buy from the people they like.  Don't let the "like" increase your costs.  Buy from whom you choose, but realize that the seven functions of telecom and cellular management must be completed, or your monthly costs will be more than they should be.  That's just the way it is.

Don't Waste Money on Saving Money

Count the cost of saving money, because the method can be too expensive.  

“If you don’t save, then you don’t pay” says the audit company's representative. This can be a beguiling concept.  How did you get to the point of needing to thoroughly examine telecom and cellular?  Most likely by lack of consistently applying the correct process. 

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being genius, rate the following statement: “I signed a contract not knowing the dollar liability to our company.” 

Should you sign a contract and not know the actual dollar liability?  Oh sure, you, “Share the savings.”  The biggest pile of cash can be the easiest to find.  Why should you share it?  The low hanging fruit is the easiest to pick.  

What will substantively change after you undergo the audit? 

There are other ways to reduce your monthly hard-dollar costs in telecommunications and cellular, while freeing up your staff's time.  Learn about your options.  Call CMS (503) 972-9999.  CMS does not charge a commission or contingency fee for delivering savings, nor do we accept fees from carriers.  Click here for background.

Take total control over your telecommunications and cellular. Click here to see how you gain from Total Control.

We Won't Do It - Guaranteed

Make you change carriers.

Waste your time. 

Charge you a contingency fee for cost recovery.

Charge you commission for any reason.

Take commission or payments from carriers or anyone.

Make you open telecom and cellular invoices.

Try to sell you software, services, or hardware.

Make you gather invoices, contracts, or records.

Think spreadsheets are boring.  

Forget to change your pooled cellular minutes.

Allow your inventory to become inaccurate. 

Charge you extra for cost recovery.

Charge you a procurement fee.

Accept a procurement fee.

Stumble on our commitment to you.

Ignore a telecom or cellular trouble ticket. 

Not follow through on a move-add-change-disconnect (MACD). 

Charge you extra because we had to work longer hours to get a project complete.

Tolerate not knowing the what and the why of each line item on each bill.

Say, “Good enough for now.”

Let our phone ring more than 4 times when you call. 

Be silent and let you make a second best decision.

Neglect your phone call or email.

Outsource any part of our service to you.

Breach confidentiality.

Chew with our mouth open.

Dull Story about Disconnected Internet Circuits

Telecom and cellular administration can get tedious.  That is one reason why it gets ignored.  Or, sometimes it gets de-prioritized because of urgent problems.   

CMS saved a company an additional $3,533.66 per month. 

Problem.  The company’s telecom manager, the accounting staff, the telecom carriers, and the agent did not have the time or inclination to examine billing associated to circuits.

The company did not notice the over billing, because their costs had remained about the same. 

After the company hired CMS, we concluded that several internet circuits served no purpose.  The rub was that a vendor convinced the client that two specific circuits must not be issued disconnect orders.  CMS provided the client with photos showing that nothing was connected to those circuits. 

CMS wrestled with the carriers and vendors, and did all the work.  The savings belong 100% to the client.  The account now bills correctly. 

We remove at least 90% of telecom and cellular tasks from your to-do list, and simultaneously reduce your hard-dollar costs.  Click here for background.

Let us achieve measurable results for you.  www.cmsenterprisesinc.com

$209,000 Credit

A jaded CIO exclaimed, “It’s a miracle” because the carrier credited $209,000 to his company's account. 

Prior to engaging CMS, the client’s internal telecom manager had pursued this credit for 3 years.  The carrier previously refused to issue a credit, or even partial credit.   

CMS’ time, expertise, and enthusiasm resulted in the credit to client.  And, CMS has freed staff time to pursue other key objectives.  The CIO recognized CMS’ efforts, “Thanks for continuing to drive this to completion.” 

CMS never takes a commission from carrier or client. 

What if an audit company recovered this credit?  A contingency fee of 20% to 50% would have been charged. 

Pay us a flat fee for our work, and you keep 100% of the results.  


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