In our hyper-connected world, we rely on telecoms services more than most of us realize or care to admit. Whether it’s through the utilization of our mobile phones, accessing the internet or accessing streaming services, telecoms services have become fundamental in our daily lives.
However, the convenience of these telecoms services can quickly change from a convenience to a financial burden if left unchecked. While telecoms service providers are continuously on the hunt for new ways to enhance their products and services and satisfy our changing demands, many customers still fall victim to the trap of overages. Unmonitored usages add up quickly over a period of time, resulting in unplanned invoices that that many organizations find difficult to absorb.
In this blog, we’ll explore how unmonitored telecoms resource usage leads to telecom overages and what organizations can do to prevent them.
Understanding Telecom Overages
Telecom overages occur when organisations exceed the data, minutes or text messages allocated to them by their contracted telecoms product / service plan. While each telecoms service provider and their contracts have different policies, terms and thresholds, the bottom line amongst all service providers is that exceeding your contracted usage will result in additional charges. These charges, more often than not, are significantly higher than the base rate charged for contracted usage.
With the world-wide growth in reliance on data for everything from online research to video conferencing, these overages can accumulate a lot quicker than what people realize so what may seem like a minor increase in data usage can actually lead to a hefty additional amount on your monthly telecoms bill.
Why Unmonitored Usage is Risky
1. Increased Dependence on Digital Services:
As a result of organisations embracing the more digital lifestyle of today, their employees have begun to change their data usage patterns quite drastically. They’re shifting further away from in-person meetings, towards video conferences. Customer support that was traditionally conducted through phone calls is being replaced with chatbots. These data-dependent shifts are pushing users to consume more and more data, and unfortunately, if this usage isn’t monitored correctly, it will eventually lead to additional telecoms expenses that weren’t budgeted for.
2. Complex Pricing Structures:
Many telecoms service providers make use of pricing structures that majority of customers may not fully understand or have the telecoms expertise to fully appreciate the true impact of.
For example, telecoms service provider ‘A’ will charge their customers for every MB (megabyte) of data used over their contracted data limit. But telecoms service provider ‘B’ will impose a flat rate for the overage. If organisations don’t have a clear understand of the terms, conditions and all the associated costs found within their contracts, they are likely to find themselves with a large spike in their telecoms bill that they have not planned for.
3. Mental Accounting:
The saying “Out of sight, out of mind” is appropriate to this point. What often happens is that we don’t see the actual impact of our data usage, or we don’t track it correctly, causing us to lose touch of our true usage and forcing us to rely on what we believe is correct, rather than actual figures. Often times, the figure in our heads don’t match the real figure on the invoice.
So what can you do to reduce the risk of your telecoms expenses spiralling out of control?
Employ ICT specialists with a track record of optimizing and managing this environment. Contact Telesa Comms if you’re ready to change your organizations’ telecoms environment from a business expense to a strategic telecoms business enablement tool.
