Second only to Payroll, communications is the largest expense facing most businesses today. GILL Technologies is a solutions firm that specializes in helping businesses to manage their communications expenses and reduce over all costs by up to 50%. Below are 5 tips for reducing your company’s communications expenses.

1. Check Your Bills for Errors: This tip is so obvious that many companies overlook it. In fact, companies typically overpay six to eight percent on their telecommunications invoices because of billing errors. The most common problems are circuits that have been disconnected but have continued to be billed, and invoices that do not reflect new, lower rates.

2. Renegotiate your contracts: If your telecom contract is set for automatic renewal, you might be cheating yourself out of a better deal. Talk to other providers and see if they can beat the price you’re currently paying or can offer more services for the same price.

3. Consider VoIP: You’ve probably heard the buzz around Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). It’s already taking the enterprise world by storm, and adoption among small and mid-size businesses is gradually increasing. VoIP enables you to use your data network — which you already use to access the Internet — to place phone calls. It can be more cost effective than owning your own private branch exchange (PBX), not only because the equipment is cheaper, but also because you can make many of your calls without ever using the public switched telephone network or paying for long distance.

4. Assign appropriate plans for cell phone users: Avoid small business cell phone plans that offer more minutes than your employees actually use. If they need to make more phone calls at certain times of the year – like during trade show season, peak sales visit periods, or other special projects – consider buying more minutes during those times or carrying forward minutes from previous months. That way, you aren’t paying bloated prices year round.

5. Use conferencing instead of traveling: Conference Calling has quickly become a popular system of business-related communications. Company representatives may now promote their product or service and present business proposals to remote clients without need for actual travel and the incident expenses of lodging and utilities. Aside from money, the company’s time is also used more efficiently since scheduling conferences over the phone can be done by just dialing the phone. This can be used in conjunction with Web Conferences as well.

For most companies the above suggestions can be quite daunting and expensive to handle internally. Outsourcing the management of telecom, data, wireless and new technology costs, can often be your best solution. For information on how GILL Technologies can help in the areas of communications expense audits, management and reporting, and a dedicated ClientCare support team, contact us at 1-877-507-6988 or visit us online at www.gill-technologies.com