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Traffic offices live and die by the telephone, but how many hauliers realise that schemes such as Call Sc Save can slash their call charges by as much as 20%?
According to telephone watchdog Oftel, at the end of its last monitoring year only 12% of business users had cottoned on to the low-cost "indirect access" or prefix services which offer 30% savings against BT's standard call charges. But some ri% of businesses had switched to cable, where the savings are lower and you have the inconvenience of changing your number.
Competition is beginning to hot up now. So what are these deals really worth, which is best for your business and where are the snags, if any?
Most deals are expressed as a percentage off BT, which is still the benchmark for call prices by virtue of being the only regulated supplier. It has to deliver services at a price formula consisting of RP1 minus x96, reviewed periodically. Currently it's 4.5%, which means that if inflation is 2.5% BT's prices must fall by 2% a year.
Discounts
BT offers a range of discount schemes: some for all calls; some for specifically nominated numbers; some free; some with an additional "membership fee".
• Call & Save: ro% savings on all qualifying calls, and it's free to join if your qualifying bill is over £25 (inc-VAT) a quarter. But you do have to ask to join.
• DayTime Caller to% off calls E between o8:oo-18:oohrs Mondayco Friday. For £1.50 a quarter it can E be combined with Call & Save to er ' give zo% on relevant calls. .g. • Option 15: Savings of II% for a .§ fee of L3.2 o per quarter.
. • Premierline: Savings of 15% for m D' a fee of £6 per quarter—this
could be worthwhile if your quarterly bill is over ko.
• Friends & Family: to% off ro most-used numbers (you have to select them) with 20% off one number. This can be combined with the above schemes.
Maximum savings with BT are therefore 35% for one designated number, 25% for nine others and 15% for any other number.
There are three forms of competition to the BT system: • Cable operators have to provide their own infrastructure, and have the cable monopoly in the areas to which they are licensed; if you move to them you get a new number. Cable phone rates vary and typically they are cheaper than BT, but not as cheap as most discount operations.
• Indirect-access operators are those who provide you with a four-figure prefix to use when you dial. They have been most competitive on national calls, but are now competing for local calls as well. Examples include First Telecom, Telco and Telecom Plus. You keep your existing number and continue to pay line rental to BT. Savings are typically 30% off BT's standard rates, or zo% below BT's own Premierline discount scheme. In general these prefix operators don't charge a fee, so you save the £24 annual Premierline fee as well.
• "Calls and access" is a service offered by operators including NextCall and LocalTel who bulkbuy BT services at a discount and sell them on to customers. You keep your old number, but all the billing and customer service is handled by the reseller. This includes the line rental, which stays the same, but calls are discounted, and BT services such as Premierline and Friends and
Family are also provided, with the additional discount. NextCall provides up to 35% savings over BT, but with an .D.1.90 monthly rental charge (plus a BT handover fee of/28.99). LocalTers proposition is quite different: a modest to% off calls, but with free offpeak connection to the Internet via its own access service, Screaming Net, available through electrical retailer Tempo.
Marketing
Even lower phone rates are being offered as part of the marketing campaign by digital TV service operators, Sky and ONdigital.
Both are offering a 40% discount on BT's standard rates— but only if you subscribe to their pay-TV services, which start at £7 a month. For these operators. the phone deal is actually a preemptive move against the cable companies, which will soon be offering digital TV.
Other cross-marketing deals are offered by Barclaycard and Goldfish. Barclaycard, for example, offers a 20% discount against BT's standard rate, which can be increased to 30% in exchange for 350 Barclaycard Reward Points.
Accessing many of the services is a simple matter of using a prefix number when dialling a call. You will probably need to sign a form giving a billing address, but this does not tie you to an exclusive supply agreement.
There is no reason why you should not mix and match operators to get the best, customised rates. For example, one of the cheapest daytime rates is from One-Tel, which charges 3.4p a minute at all times for all UK calls, local or national.
• by Peter Willis
• CONTACTS
• DT: 150 (or 0800 800150) www.bt.com
• Localtel: 0845 8450150 www.localtel.co.uk • Sky: 08702 404080 www.sky.co.uk
• Telco: 0800 594000 www.telco-gc.com • Telecom Plus: 020 8955 5555 www.telecompIus.co.uk • One-Tel: 0800 6341852 wwww.one-tel.co.uk • Cable: Contact local operator