Further discussion about fleet plans

There are suggestions to further discuss fleet plans. Unfortunately there is not much information published on providers website so I can not do a plan-plan comparison like my previous post. What I will discuss below is based on plans offered by my previous company and will be in QA format.

1. Q: Why choose a fleet

A: There are several reasons: first it’s easier to manage all your services, being on one plan so you understand the rating structure and detail; secondary, most fleet plans offer free calls between services, so it’s ideal for colleagues to ring each other for free; thirdly included value on fleet plans most times can be shared among services. For example if one service is a light user(like office admin), its share of included value may be used by another heavy user(sales for example).

2. Q: It appears fleet plans are fantastic, what’s the catch?

A: As mentioned in my previous post, fleet plans bring some challenges as well: It’s actually harder to manage one service expense. I know most companies don’t monitor their telecommunication expenses due to technical difficulties or basically lack of control(which is quite a mistake as unless you do, you don’t know where the money goes). Fleet plans may easily break billing systems if they are not carefully designed. I once worked in a large telecommunication company which spends millions of dollars on maintaining its billing system, the system was so complex that it’s not surprising if someone missed something, from business requirements to IT interpretation and implementation. Being an insider, I have seen numerous billing errors due to various reasons.

3. Q: Are there some typical issues relating to fleet plans?

A: Yes. Tell you what, telecommunication companies are not idiots, they offer fleet plans not for your interest, it’s actually in their interest promoting those plans. Why? They closely monitor your usage and analyse the pattern, if you reach that point, they may cancel your services. In my last company, they found one of their customers constantly reach the limit. They identified the service which appeared to be used as a gateway and cancelled it immediately.  Other issues : for included value sharing, some companies do call level allocation while others do  service level. Obviously call level allocation is ideal but it requires too much resources on software and hardware so the latter is also popular. If they do service level, then it’s very unlikely to distinguish between GST applicable and GST non-applicable calls(roaming) then your GST figure may be incorrect. After daytime saving changes, double check your bills to ensure they are not impacted!  Customer rebates which may be used for purchasing handsets, make sure you get them correctly, being complete or pro-rata.

4. Last but not least, if in doubt, seek help and we can offer  an inspection of your bill for free!

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