You have a low rate, but do you have a good deal?
Establishing a stellar telecommunications contract does not simply mean negotiating the best pricing. Your terms and conditions may prove even more important than your monthly fee.
Telecom carriers have standard contracts that act in their best interests, not yours. Just because they would prefer you to agree to the best terms for them, doesn’t mean that they won’t work with you and make adjustments to gain your business. People often assume it’s a take it or leave it situation with telecom contracts, but there are many instances where you can negotiate better terms. Here are the three main conditions you may want to consider:
- Chronic Outage
It is important for carrier representatives to sell you multi-year contracts. Longer commitments will often get you a better deal, but their motivation lies in the security of the revenue for a longer period of time. No one wants to change their telecom services on a regular basis, so this is a win-win for everyone… As long as the service works. In standard telecom contracts, the term length does not account for chronic outages. That means that you are contractually obligated to pay for the termination fee even if your reason for termination is due to frequent service outages. The good news is that you can negotiate this condition ahead of time, so you may leave a carrier without paying a termination fee if you are not getting adequate service. Negotiating this ahead of time can save you a lot of time and resources fighting your telecom company.
- Downturn in Business
Some companies go into a telecom contract to gain services for its multiple locations. What if one or more of those locations eventually has to close for economic reasons outside the business owner’s control? If you have a business that is signing on for service with multiple locations, you will probably want to negotiate the condition that you are not liable for termination fees of locations that close due to economic reasons outside of your control. If you don’t negotiate the condition from the start, you will likely have to pay a hefty termination charge for the location(s) cutting service before the contract is up.
- Auto-Renewal
Telecom service contracts typically auto-renew for the length of the initial contract term. For example, if you entered into a 5 year contract, then you will be renewed for another 5 years automatically if you do not contact your provider to cancel within 30 days of your auto-renew date. This leaves a very small window for you to cancel without termination fees and may keep you in a service arrangement you would prefer to get out of. P2CM can assist you by writing an addendum to keep your contract from auto-renewing without your knowledge.
We hope this information is helpful to you. Unfortunately, not all carriers are flexible with their terms and conditions. In our experience, a few of the LEAST flexible carriers are Verizon, Comcast and AT&T. A few of that are MOST likely to work with you on terms and conditions, are Windstream, Broadview, and Cox. Fortunately, most carriers have some degree of flexibility to negotiate a contract to your satisfaction.
You don’t have to fight with your telecom carriers. P2CM can do that for you! Please contact us at (703) 939-8240 or sales@p2cm.com if you’d like help negotiating your telecom contracts or if you have questions about this post!
We hope you enjoyed our first blog article and we look forward to connecting!