By George Emmons, 8/2/7 GTE Communications specializes in Telecom Bill Auditing which we believe is the first step in Telecom Expense Management (TEM). We look for billing over charges, inappropriate charges, unauthorized charges and then negotiate refunds for our clients. We believe this is the quickest way to reduce your clients Telecom spend and the most profitable aspect of TEM/TCM for an Agent, Reseller or Vendor. We do auditing work for several TEM Companies on the West Coast as well as individual agents/vendors looking for ways to save their clients money so they can invest in new technologies. We are successful in finding substantial savings 85% of the time. Since we work on a contingency basis, "the sale" is made when we get a refund and/or monthly savings for the client. This process often leads to "traditional" telecommunications product sales for our partners. Here are a few examples: 1). A large financial services company headquartered in the SF Bay Area was being over billed for multiple DS3's going into one of their call centers. The customer was being double billed for portions of these circuits by both Sprint & SBC. While the billing mistake was obvious, both carriers blamed the billing mistake on the other company. Long story short, after several months of negotiations, we secured a refund of a little over $500,000. Just the other day, we ran across the same billing issue on a T1 circuit between Sacramento and Los Angeles for another client. This time the carriers were AT&T & New Edge Networks. While the potential refund will be much lower (approximately $10,000) it illustrates that this particular billing mistake is common on private lines services and if you know what you are looking for you can find refund opportunities for clients of all sizes. 2). We were hired to prepare the Telephone Tax Refund paperwork for a mortgage company. While reviewing their old bills, we discovered a DIA circuit that seemed to be priced excessively high. Unfortunately, the circuit had been disconnected the previous year. After reviewing the contract, we found that they never received the contract pricing they were promised and were paying month to month rates for over 5 years. It took several months of waiting but the carrier finally agreed to refund the difference during the 36 month term of the contract. The credit was a little over $8,000. (We are continuing to pursue an additional credit of $5,000 we believe is still owed.) 3). Several years ago, we did a bill review for a large video conferencing company. They received bills from 47 different carriers throughout the USA and wanted to streamline their service providers and centralize billing. During the process, we were able to secure refunds and reduce their telecom spend by $1.6 Million dollars. In addition, they were able to cut the number of service providers down to 18. With the help of an SBC Master Agent, we renewed their contract for 51 T1 circuits which resulted in a substantial commission for everyone involved. 4). A commercial real estate brokerage in San Jose was looking for an on-line bill management system. They received bids from several vendors with price estimates of $1,000+ per month, which they thought was too expensive. After reviewing the 80+ bills they received each month, we found that they were using only 3 different carriers (Sprint, AT&T, Verizon). We set up summary billing accounts with each carrier, established CD Rom and established on-line access to their bills. We used a simple excel spreadsheet to provide an inventory list for each service location by carrier. While consolidating the bills, we uncovered incorrect billing resulting in close to $3,000 in monthly savings. In addition, we negotiated a contract for 14 PRI's to replace their existing analog lines. We monitor their bills each quarter for a fraction of the amount they were quoted for bill management services. We have helped companies of all sizes reduce their telecom spend without making any physical changes. Even more, when you add those clients who were willing to change the type of service or service provider. We offer both a referral program and a partner program for independent agents/vendors looking for additional revenue streams. I hope this is what you wanted. We have many more "Telecom Cost Management" stories to share with you and your readers. If you would like more information, feel free to call me. George Emmons
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