80% of businesses in the UK overspend on their telephone costs. Customers are often confused about the various solutions and cost options available. In reality there is no need to be - just ensure that you are talking to a supplier who provides a wide range of options and that they recommend the best solution for you. For organisations such as EWC who specialise in providing a broad range of business telecoms solutions, the prime business driver is to provide the optimum cost saving regardless of the technology and introduce new services

Now is always the right time to review your telecoms cost and you are almost certainly able to make worthwhile savings. I would recommend these simple hints:

1. Use a specialist not just a reseller of minutes such as a PBX maintainer. Exploit their expertise to present the options that most suit your business in plain English.
2. Do not assume that BT will be the most expensive ? using BT lines open up opportunities with alternative carriers.
3. If you don't have a BT line, ensure the carrier enables the ?Carrier Pre Select? service on your line to allow you to use alternative carriers.
4. If you are calling just one specific person and quality is not a major issue then consider one of the free PC to Phone options such as Skype.
5. If a PC to Phone solution doesn't provide adequate quality use a low cost IP Phone like a Grandstream coupled with an account from a VOIP providor to make free calls to other accounts and low cost calls elsewhere.
6. Local and national calls to land lines may make up the bulk of your bill but don't assume the supplier with the lowest rates to these numbers will be the best overall. Often the cost to mobiles or international numbers can be so high that it offsets any savings.
7. While your existing supplier may be beneficial on certain routes most office systems can easily allow two or more suppliers to maximise your savings. Do not be put off by this, the best way to maximise savings may be to use BT on capped routes such as USA and alternate suppliers for the real high cost routes for the bulk of the savings.
8. Make the suppliers do the work for you. Companies such as EWC always provide a comparison of your call costs to their services free of charge. This is the easiest way to reduce your cost allowing you to focus on other areas of your business.
9. Don't forget your mobile phones. Your supplier should be able to offer means of making even greater savings from your mobiles.
10. If following your cost review your incumbent supplier proposes to match any cost savings you make, seek a rebate for at least the past 6 months against the new rates ? after all shouldn't your supplier have been pro-actively looking after your needs?

Glenn Williams is the co founder of EW Communications Ltd a company dedicated to reducing the telephone costs of businesses across the globe.

Glenn has over 10 years experience in the telecoms sector, initially at a UK cable operation. Prior to founding EWC he run a UK based PC to Phone operation turning it into a global market leader within 2 years.EWC provides low cost telephone service to companies in the UK and overseas using technology such as VOIP, Carrier Pre Select and GSM gateways to ensure the maximimum benefit for its customers. Using EWc solutions provides our global customers with savings of betwen 25% and 60% against the alternatives.