Auditel Consultant:
Lee Freeman

Mobile phones – those unused minutes

07 Jul 2010 | Filed under: cost management, Mobiles, telecoms

I came across a couple of articles recently that discussed a survey conducted on behalf of the price comparison website Top10.com. For the full text see below:

http://www.reghardware.com/2010/07/05/contract_phones_wrong_contractss/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_10520000/newsid_10522300/10522319.stm

This survey centered around the use of the bundle of free minutes that now come with most mobile phones fixed term contracts and the fact that the majority of us do not fully utilise these. What staggered me however was the amount of money it is estimated this cost the British consumer over a year – £800m. Now not a huge amount compared to the current budget deficit of billions but not a small number by any stretch of the imagination. So why don’t we do something about it? Too lazy that is why. How many of you have walked into a mobile phone shop when the contract is up for a renewal and rather than asking which flashy smartphone is available on a “free” upgrade (providing you renew for another year or two!!) have actually asked to review the tariff? Not many of you I bet?

The same is true in the corporate world too. I am sure if I undertook a survey of 10 executives with a company mobile phone, none of them would be able to tell me what bundle of minutes they are on, or whether they fully utilised the bundle they received. Ask them however if they wanted the latest iPhone 4, and I reckon you would get an immediate 10 yes’s. Does it help them do their job better, I guess probably not, but it certainly looks better when they are down the pub with their mates. Well let me let you into a little secret, generally the mobile networks do not make huge monies from the handsets they send you, but they do make huge amounts from the unused minutes you have bought from them. I do not know the value of the level of unused minutes at a corporate level but I bet it dwarf’s the £800m in the consumer world. The question to ask again is why does this happen, and the answer, again unfortuantely is laziness. As long as the mobile rings when it is meant to, corporate bods do not care that they are wasting money on unused minutes. Well, I am sure they would if it was their job on the line, and their own redundancy could have been prevented by changing to the correct mobile tariff and saving the company money.

I appreciate that most companies do not have the resource to undertake this detailed level of analysis, or indeed understand the contract terms sufficiently to calculate the number, so give this role to somone who does. What’s more they don’t charge for this service either, until actual savings have been made. Is there such a person I hear you ask, well yes there is, myself and my fellow Auditel affiliates. Sound too good to be true!! Give me a call to find out! All of are satisfied clients can not be wrong!!