You can keep as quiet as you like, but one of these days somebody is going to find you.”

-Haruki Murakami

Verizon has taken new steps to becoming a leader in the mobile industry. They are now allowing consumers to increase their data for free, or allow them to stay at their same level of data for ten dollars less. Each plan for different levels of GB is a different price. This is a deal that could save each existing mobile plan $120 dollars per year. For businesses, this could mean thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars saved.

However, Verizon reps are not automatically giving existing customers these discounts. Instead, they are making it the customer’s job to monitor these deals and making no effort to tell them about the promotion. Not only do the customers have to be constantly aware of new promotions, they also have to call the company and sit on hold to tell Verizon they want this discount. Both consumers and businesses alike are too busy to monitor these confusing promotions. This trend of mobile service providers discounting services and host promotions for new clients, without informing existing customers is occurring too often. This is because telecom service providers normally focus on obtaining new clients, and not retaining existing customers.

Thankfully there are expert third party telecom specialists available to you that are aware of all telecommunication promotions and can work with your providers to get the lowest rates possible. These companies take over the job of monitoring new savings and working with reps to alter contracts. However, a simple warning, make sure to use a third party telecom vendor that wants to work with you as a partner and is experienced in contract negotiation. This can make the pivotal difference between you saving hundreds of dollars, instead of thousands of dollars.

Recently, AT&T has been under fire for misleading its customers on several of its program’s pricing strategies. Additionally, the FTC just discovered that AT&T is also affecting how a customer’s data functions in order to reduce AT&T’s data costs.

AT&T has developed the promotion of the Unlimited Data plan which is supposed to charge a relatively low flat rate for all the data usage the customer needs in a month without charging them overages. This is a highly competitive tactics since other telecommunications providers say that there are too many costs associated with unlimited data problems.

Seems too good to be true? Well, the Federal Trade Commission says that it is. Based on FTC research, AT&T is being sued for mis-advertising the unlimited data plan. Apparently, once the customer gets to a certain level of data, the service slows up to 90% of the speed, making it impossible for customers to use the data quickly and forcing them to either wait for their connection or give up and stop using it. The barrier ensures that AT&T does not have to pay excess costs for data, essentially setting a technical limit on an unlimited plan. This technique is called throttling and it is not legal. It is illegal because AT&T is telling customers that they will get the same access to unlimited amounts of data, but really they are guilty of false advertising by making it impossible to use the data (even though technically they are providing unlimited data to the user).

Although this is frustrating for an individual AT&T user, it could be detrimental to businesses using AT&T services. Businesses rely on access to large amounts of mobile data to speak, present, and share information with clients. The unlimited data plan is enticing because business owners and corporations generally use a large amount of data. However, AT&T’s tactic ensures that business communication will slow and valuable partnerships could potentially end because of lack of response.

In many articles, I speak of how important it is to monitor costs. However, it is also important to know the company providing a service respects you and your business. Telecom providers often are not seen as partners to a business because they are a necessity. However, you need to remember that you are a client to them and their main focus should be to make their service work best for your business, not to make money. Make sure that those you form business relationships with are serving your best interests, or find another resource that wants to see their client’s succeed.

Written by Todd Larsen, CEO Limitless Technology~Cost Reduction Specialists 

For just a minute I would like you to think about what win-win means. Immediately you should get a sense of cooperation, collaboration and the spirit of peaceful satisfaction. If not, I want to know your definition in the comments below.

The follow is an excerpt from Stephen Covey’s THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE – HABIT 4: THINK WIN-WIN…

“Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-win means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying. We both get to eat the pie, and it tastes pretty darn good!

A person or organization that approaches conflicts with a win-win attitude possesses three vital character traits:

• Integrity: sticking with your true feelings, values, and commitments
• Maturity: expressing your ideas and feelings with courage and consideration for the ideas and feelings of others
• Abundance Mentality: believing there is plenty for everyone”

While Stephen speaks of Win-Win from a personal perspective, he relates his meanings towards habits of successful people. In business and in life we at Limitless Technology ~ Cost Reduction Specialists believe in making sure we continuously focus on delivering Win-Win solutions for our Clients.

That stated, we all have heard great quotes from various people in our lives such as…

• Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. Vince Lombardi
• Winning is not everything, but wanting to win is. Vince Lombardi

Yet, there are also quotes that place emphasis on the short term conviction with a  long term right thing to do view…

• “The result of long-term relationships is better and better quality, and lower and lower costs”. W. Edwards Deming
• “It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.” The Dalai Lama

We believe you need to study the context, application and outcome to define a true win-win outlook and practice. We would say winning is as much short term goal as it is long term Vision. At Limitless Technology ~ Cost Reduction Specialists we strive every day to make sure our customers see from us a win-win conviction.

We hope you will too.

Limitless Technology~CRS

Delivering expert results on: billing optimization services, telecom auditing, telecom contract management, telecom expense management, and telecom and technology consulting.

www.limitlesstechnology.com