Millions of dollars are lost each day in telecom billing errors, and some of these telecom mistakes should be refunded if your business is entitled to the refund. Is your telecom budget escalating?  Has your office considered outsourcing telecom?  There is money in your telecom bills and knowledge is the only real key to capturing this telecom tax recovery.  Have you ever cancelled a line and heard the disconnected tone only to find out months later that the telecom expense never stopped? This is a simple billing error, although it’s tiny compared with the volumes of mistakes we find in telecom billing. There are many key elements that dictate and determine whether your business could be eligible for a refund.
Finding Telecom Refunds is Your Corporate Responsibility
Many people are under the impression that any mistake found on their phone bills qualifies for a refund on all the overcharges. Unfortunately, this just isn’t true. The Phone Company Representative will work to correct the billing mistake, but not in every case will they mention giving a refund. In fact, if you mention a refund don’t be surprised to find out its your responsibility to review your bills and request timely refunds.  They may say there is a time limit on the errors you found within your bills. Why should your company fall prey to these billing errors when there is a solution?
Before Changing Service Providers Conduct a Telecom Audit
Auditel recommends do your homework before outsourcing telecom and before changing carriers or service providers.  In fact your business needs to be certain all your bills are correct, or you may never get the refunds you are due once you move or change service providers.
Count Employees Time Into the Outsourcing Budget
As many companies tighten their corporate belts to reduce the business budget, often they look toward outsourcing job functions to reduce expenses. Staff labor hours are counted toward each business task or project.  This helps business determine the best use of corporate resources.  With telecom auditing it’s essential to have knowledgeable resources.
Is Your Business Aware of Telecom Billing Errors?
Corporate business are either unaware of telecom refunds and telephone billing errors, or they feel the time spent on bill correction, or clean up won’t substantiate the savings. If they could only see the telecom bills through the eyes of a trained, telecom billing auditor they would have a change of heart.
Telecom Training With Auditel
Many companies we’ve conducted audits for recommend we help educate and provide telecom training to others by giving them a “clue”, something they can go to their bills to look for. We decided to take the challenge and include a few items for them to look for. We can’t mention all the telecom auditing skills and procedures here. Let’s start with a few organizational steps for telecom bills. First step is to gather all the telephone bills and telecom bills together that you pay during one month. Many will probably be from the same carrier so they “may” qualify for bill consolidation. Why do we mention “may”? Let me explain more in step two.
Telecom Training Tips
Step two moves deeper into a specific bill. Just remove one phone bill from the stack and look at the monthly service charges. You will need to determine the monthly service charges within your bill, including usages. Most providers have a total monthly service fee. Look at the top of the bill and locate the Account Number or telephone number. Moreover, we recommend checking to see if the bill is for one of your locations.  Furthermore, it’s always a good idea to determine if all the numbers in the bill belong to your company plus there are many items within a phone bill that can be analyzed. Each service, feature and usage along with other fees and surcharges make up the bill total.
More Telecom Tips
If you want to dig further into your bills here’s what we recommend that you do. Contact our office to learn about outsourcing telecom, telecom recovery, and savings.  We can get your office familiar with USOC codes and tariff. You will need to order a customer service record (CSR).  This is a record of all the telecom and phone services back to service established date.  However, without deep telecom knowledge these service records may look like hieroglyphics. With a telecom audit we walk you through all the items found in your telecom records. We bring our findings after we compare the CSR records with the actual service you have at your location. With a detailed phone bill audit we give you details of your telecom services, and advise you on any items billing incorrectly. If any recovery is available we will obtain it for you.
Don’t Leave Telecom Refunds When You Change Service Providers
Remember before considering outsourcing telecom and before making any service provider or carrier changes do your homework. Don’t forfeit telecom recovery, always check for refunds before changing service providers. It is best to correct telecom billing mistakes before moving, or before upgrading service or making any large changes. Research the phone and telecom bills along with telecom contracts.  Or have a telecom audit and we will include a detailed investigation of all your phone, data, wireless billings, and telecom inventory.
Auditel is an auditing telecommunication company focused on telecom bill refunds and we have captured well over $125M to date for our clients.
