Ann Bosley never paid much attention to her cellphone bills, but when the vice-president of Toronto’s Bosley Real Estate decided to buy a second home in the United States, she wanted to calculate how much her non-Canadian calls would cost.
After reviewing her statements she thought her bills were high, but the real-estate agent was reluctant to call her carrier and wait on hold for hours. “Time is money in our business,” Ms. Bosley says. “I couldn’t afford to wait.”
So she found someone else to haggle on her behalf.
Six months ago, Ms. Bosley hired MobileVantage – one of a number of new Canadian companies that negotiates mobile rates on behalf of individuals and small businesses – to help get her cell costs under control.
Business executives and owners are increasingly outsourcing their telecom bill negotiations. Ted Gorsline started MobileVantage 18 months ago and already his phone is ringing non-stop. At first he took every client he could find – individuals and smaller firms — but now he’s focusing on small businesses. “Business owners want to sell their products, not worry about cellphone expenses,” he explains. “So companies have been more receptive to the idea of someone else taking charge to cut costs.”
Ross Pinkerton, CEO of Toronto’s ERA Canada, a company that helps reduce costs for medium-sized business, has also fielded an increasing amount of requests to deal with mobile bills. Mr. Pinkerton doesn’t deal exclusively with cellphones plans – he tries to cut expenses across all areas of a business — but he has seen client bills soar in the past few years.
“Wireless costs have increased markedly,” he says. “We have a more mobile work force, people are working out of the office, there’s greater functionality on smartphones – it costs money to do all that.”
He says business owners are more receptive to getting outside help to reduce costs than most Canadians. While a lot of the entrepreneurs he’s worked with say they’re comfortable reigning in labour or freight costs, with complicated plans and bills that vary from month to month, many of his customers are at a loss when it comes to navigating the wireless space.
“Costs are trending upward significantly and steeply,” Mr. Pinkerton says. “And no one in an organization can say why.”
Sarah Prevette, CEO of Sprouter.com, a website that connects entrepreneurs with business experts, isn’t surprised that companies such as MobileVantage are popping up and doing well. People often know they’re paying too much for their cellphone usage, but many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) simply don’t have the time, or the patience, to cut through all the red tape.
“These consultants directly correlate with how terribly bureaucratic and how unsatisfied people are with telecom companies. If an entire industry is coming forward to navigate the process, maybe it’s time for the process to be revamped.”
While people can, of course, call their carrier themselves, Yale Holder, president of Mycellphonemyterms.com, a Toronto-based company that also works with businesses to lower mobile payments, says because company’s like his negotiate plans all the time, they have access to discounts that consumers don’t know about.
Mr. Holder’s company usually helps clients at the end of their contract. He takes a customer’s bill and runs the numbers through a system that spits out a recommended plan that’s partly based on previous negotiations he’s done. That gives him a place to start.
A month or so before the plan ends, Mr. Holder gets representatives from Rogers, Telus, Bell and Mobilicity to bid, via an online system, on the contract. Sometimes telecoms fight for one client, but Mr. Holder typically gets the carriers to bid on numerous accounts at once. That gives the telecoms more incentive to sweeten the offer, since they’re buying in bulk. The goal is to get plans that are cheaper than the recommended option his computer program suggests.
While it may seem like the best deal would come from a company’s current provider, that’s often not the case. It depends on the size of the company, Mr. Holder says. Operations with more than 50 handsets often stay put – since carriers are dealing with many phones they’ll often come down in price to retain business. Companies with less than 50 handsets move to new carriers about 50 per cent of the time.
