There are four basic things you can do if you own your own business or manage Blackberry’s for your business to save money on your coverage:
1. Ask your corporate provider if everyone is on the same corporate billing account number (BAN): Doing this ensures a base line of corporate minutes and/or data per month for all of your users. This will decrease the surprises for what should or should not be included and reduce hassles as to why messages or bills are over their quota.
2. Train those who travel the most frequently on roaming charges: Understanding roaming fees and SMS/calls is critical. Ensure that Blackberry Messenger (BBM) is used versus SMS since Canadian/North American providers charge the most in the world for texting and roaming in Canada is especially expensive.
3. Instruct users to avoid dialing 1-800 numbers while outside of the US: In the United States, 1-800 numbers simply use ‘minutes’, but outside of the US they are no longer “toll free”. International long-distance rates will apply when they are dialed and therefore simply training your users not to dial them internationally will help.
4. Isolate those who have the largest bills and revisit the their plans, specifically: User habits and behavior issues with how they are using the devices may be causing them to increase your costs without their knowledge. Once you identify what they are doing, you can instruct them on how to change habits or adjust their plan.
5. Work with your BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) administrator to create a standard device model and operating system (OS) base: When Blackberry users are due for a free upgrade, this allows for a smoother transition and cheaper training across the corporate board. Having to increase training time/costs to train for multiple OS versions and questions and guidance will affect the corporate budget.
If your coporation is in need of BlackBerry skills training or support, Erich Stauffer conducts workshops focusing on how to be more efficient and productive when using your BlackBerry or Android Smartphone. Most smartphone users only use 10-20% of the device functionality. Our workshops will enable your staff to use their new skills to better utilize all the dynamic functionality their device has to offer, which can make them more productive for your corporation. For more information, contact us.