Not long ago you expected very little from a cell phone. A convenient and portable medium for placing a phone call-sure. Texting? That was an exotic and sometimes helpful perk.
But times have changed. New varieties of phones allow you to enhance your service to customers, and such capabilities seem to be growing constantly. Need an example? "Today you can attach a small case that has a laser scanner and a magnetic stripe card reader to each phone," says James E. Dion, president of Dionco Inc., a Chicago-based retail consulting firm. "In effect, you are giving a POS terminal to every employee." Not only are customers served faster, but the employees can also send receipts by email, or you can even look up product questions on a website in minutes.
Add to that the proliferation of QR codes, the ability to track inventory, and the constant back-and-forth of social networking sites, and it all adds up to a new era for the cell phone as the power base for successful business.
Bring Your Own
Attractive as they are, these new cell phone capabilities mean higher monthly bills. How can you cap the damage?
One answer for more business owners is to let employees use their own phones for dealing with customers and then reimburse them for business usage. This trend, sometimes referred to as "Bring Your Own Device," or BYOD, is on the increase. A recent report from Cisco states that 95 percent of organizations now allow employees to use their own devices for work calls.
The trend has distinct benefits, says Mary Landesman, senior security researcher at Cloudmark, a San Francisco-based maker of anti-spam software. "BYOD can be cheaper for a business; the employee buys the device so there are cost savings, and a consumer can often get a better deal in terms of data and voice plans." There's no longer a need for the employer to "over buy," signing up for plans that provide more than sufficient minutes to avoid costly overage charges.
And employees? Many applaud the trend. "With the advent of smartphones, employees want to access everything from one device," Landesman says. That means personal as well as business contacts and information. "People are always connected, so swapping phones would be awkward, and people want communications to be as seamless as possible."
The new generation, especially, is on board. "Surveys have shown that employees 30 or younger have firm BYOD expectations," Landesman says.
Keep Control
Yet there are downsides to BYOD. One is the potential loss of control over customer lists. It stands to reason that customers will become accustomed to calling phone numbers associated with the employees' devices. What happens when employees leave, perhaps to a competing business? Customers may well go with them.
"There is always a risk that employees, especially high-level ones, will be taking their phone-based contact list along with them when they leave the company," Landesman says. "However, these issues can be addressed through corporate policies and employment-agreement clauses."
And while it's true that clients and customers will be in the habit of calling employees' numbers, sometimes that's the price for getting the best people, points out Landesman. "Sometimes you bring people in because they have great contacts, so when they leave they may take contacts with them. You're not going to hire good people and keep them in a box."
One more thing: Whether owned by employees or by the company, cell phones can contain not only customer lists but also business data. That can be costly if a phone goes missing. That's why businesses should develop policies that detail the specific steps to follow if a phone is lost or stolen, Landesman says. "This can involve an immediate remote wipe, as well as a report to management detailing whether any sensitive information was placed at risk."
Give Them a Phone
As the above comments suggest, security of business data is a primary driver for resisting the BYOD trend. Many business owners opt for company-owned devices and calling plans. If you go that route you can also take steps to save money.
Carriers offer a selection of plans based upon your anticipated monthly usage of voice, your talking time, and data (your emails and Internet surfing). Picking the wrong plan can be costly, and it's too easy to go month-to-month without paying attention to the invoice line items.
"Before selecting a plan you will want to estimate how many minutes you will be using for voice calls, how many text messages you will be sending and receiving, and how much data you will be transferring," says Tom Phelps, president of HPA Consulting Group in Rochester, N.Y. "Keep in mind that carriers love to charge high rates for overages. It's best to keep an eye on your usage every month and increase the caps if you are getting close to your limits."
Predicting voice usage is tough enough. Even harder, though, is figuring out how much data you'll need. That will depend on the number of emails your employees will be sending each month, and how much Web browsing they will be doing. Video uses more data than any other medium. "Tell your employees that they shouldn't be watching movies on the business phones," Phelps says.
While you want to select a plan that gives you enough wiggle room, don't build in too much margin for error. Monitor your bills monthly and switch plans as needed.
Here's a tip from Larry Shawn, a Dallas-based telecom consultant: "Look into share plans which pool a set number of minutes among a number of phones." This is especially helpful if there is a lot of variability in terms of usage among employees. "Maybe one month one employee spends more time on the phone, and the next month another employee does. A pooled plan allows such variability to take place without penalty."
Getting a Good Deal
While carriers price their plans based on monthly allocations for voice and data, they often offer various plans priced at different rates for their best customers. Even if your own carrier won't volunteer information on its more attractive plans, you can take steps to make sure you land the best deal possible. One way is to call other carriers, pump them for information on competing plans, then call your carrier back and say you will move your business unless it matches the better plan.
When tracking down the best deal, don't just rely on the nationwide carriers such as Verizon and AT&T. "Regional and local carriers tend to be less costly," Shawn says, "usually because they do not necessarily have all of the bells and whistles the major national carriers do when it comes to handling more sophisticated services, especially related to smartphones. Also, if employees are going to be traveling, find out whether there are additional costs when users are out of their home area and if the service in other areas is at the same level as the home area."
One more thing: Have you selected the carrier that provides the clearest signal for your location? If your customers are complaining about the voice quality of your sales and service calls, you might not have done so. "You can research carriers on websites such as Yelp to find out how the reception is in your area," Dion says. "Remember that anything you want to do with your phone will be predicated on the service that's delivered."
