Evaluate Business Cell Phone Usage
Downsize Your Business Cell Phones
Record everyone in your business who has a cell phone. Ask for a justification for each cell phone that includes the business purpose, and what/how it is used. Compare this to the usage that was gathered when you evaluated your company's cell phone usage. If it does not agree, you can change and limit individual employee plans, or take away the cell phone altogether. If an employee needs a cell phone for a limited use purpose (i.e. after-hours emergency contact), this does not require an unlimited plan. A pay-as-you-go plan from a major carrier (Verizon, T-Mobile, etc.) or a minor carrier (such as Tracfone, Cricket, etc.) will save you money while not disconnecting your employee from the business.
Stop the Cell Phone Frills
Also take a look at what extras are added in to each cell phone contract. For example, if there is an unlimited web surfing capability, scrutinize what the employee is using this for. If they are web surfing for personal use you will want to scale this down to save money.Stop Paying For Extra Minutes
On the other hand, if an employee is truly using their cell phone for business related purposes but they keep experiencing additional charges every month because they run out of minutes, you will want to switch to an unlimited plan for that cell phone.
Get Accounts Payable to Help
Notify the accounts payable department (or person) to validate each cell phone bill before it is paid. If the bill exceeds a certain amount, a senior manager must approve it before it is paid. Keep the rule simple, such as, if employee "Jim's" cell phone bill exceeds $99 per month, flag this bill for executive approval.Power in Numbers
If you have business cell phones from several carriers and/or individual contracts per employee, you will want to aggregate these phones under one carrier to give you greater negotiating power. In addition, you can negotiate "pooled minutes" for your entire company to use across all company owned cell phones.
Use Free Cell Phone Services
Calling 411 from your cell phone may result in a charge of $1.00 or more per call. Use free services such as Free411 or Google's goog-411. Goog-411 can be used from any telephone, from anywhere just by calling 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411). It will look up the phone number by name or business category free of charge. Then Google will also give you the option to connect to that business free of charge.
