Be careful about choosing your business telecoms provider solely on price

As an established business telecoms provider we regularly get phone calls from businesses asking, “How much is hosted VoIP with KAT?” or “How much is your broadband?” or “Can you do it for a fiver?!

Though some providers do, we have never provided off the shelf pricing based on the above questions? Would you as a business owner expect us to give you pricing without understanding your business? After all what broadband product or phone system is right for one company isn’t always right for another.

With broadband for example we would typically ask:

Where are your premises based? – there is no point quoting on full fibre broadband if it isn’t available

How many people use the broadband?

Tell us about your business, what is it you do? How do you operate?  You would expect a design company to use broadband differently to a restaurant.

Anthony Temperton of KAT says “We have noticed an increase in phonecalls and online queries asking for a price for hosted VoIP for example, and the enquirer seems genuinely surprised when we come back asking questions to provide a bespoke quote. At the end of the day KAT are a solution provider and we provide telecom solutions to help a business achieve its goals. Solutions can’t be provided without questions been asked.”

Broadband as an example is an extremely competitive marketplace, it can be very price led as all business owners have broadband at home so it suddenly becomes a commodity, but business broadband is different. For example, consumers don’t often need a static IP address, but businesses do for cctv, remote access etc. Some companies charge for a static IP address, some provide it free.

Also, when you review lists of the most complained about providers its typically includes the budget providers of TalkTalk, Vodafone, PlusNet and Origin Broadband.  The complaints list doesn’t include the business telecom solution providers who KAT partner with.

Also be careful with contract terms and delivery charges of routers. Broadband technology is changing rapidly with the advent of Full Fibre Ultrafast, dont tie yourself in for 2 years on old technology. As standard KAT provide standard business broadband and FTTC on rolling 30 day contracts. This includes the new SoGEA broadband lines that do not require a voice line for them to operate.

VoIP has also become an increasingly competitive marketplace, with improvements in broadband connectivity there are now many new providers in their market with their own platforms or own branded versions of other people’s platforms. You can typically pay between £1 and £19.99 a month for a user license but what is the difference is pricing?

Some providers bundle inclusive phone calls and handsets together, some providers charge for handsets and charge for calls. The great thing with VoIP is everything is typically software driven so additional features can be taken away or added just be putting a tick in a box. No expensive pieces of on-site hardware and maintenance are required.

Again, most businesses use their phones differently so what works for one business doesn’t work for another.

When looking at VoIP solutions don’t just look at saving 1p a minute against your current provider look to see what disaster recovery processes they have in place if they have an outage. Could your business cope without phones for a day? Also look at contract length, minimum call charge and warranty plans.

Anthony Temperton adds “We avoid the budget end of the market and its more important with us in todays era of cloud business deployment that our partners provider robust, reliable solutions with emphasis placed on high levels of customer service. Certainly, our VoIP providers use multiple data centres to provide an always on service with sophisticated network monitoring solutions to track performance and guard against any network threats. It would be easy to have our own Hosted VoIP platform, they are very simple and cheap to have, but why reinvent the wheel, we would much rather use an established platform that is constantly ahead of the game.”

As a business KAT appreciate its always important to get a good deal! But there is a difference between the cheapest deal and value for money when it comes to reviewing your business telecoms.  For more information on how KAT can help your business with your goals contact the team today on 01302 260195 or via enquiries@79.170.44.128