Avoid Hidden costs with Phone Providers
"It is unwise to pay too much, but it is unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money; that is all. When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything. Because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It cannot be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run and if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.” - John Ruskin (1819 – 1900)
Using Iridium 9500 satellite phone
In a world where the axiom ‘you get what you pay for’ has never been more true, one has to be discerning when investing in satellite phone communications. Often times paying the lowest price is not cost effective.
So it is with Iridium satellite phones. Googling ‘Iridium 9555’ will yield a plethora of results from companies competing for your business based on price alone. There is no substantive difference in the hardware of a phone costing $1,595.00, $1,495.00 or $1,447.00? In simple terms, paying a small fee to have your satellite phone fully functional when it arrives at your facility and to have knowledgeable 24 hour service only a call away is a far better use of your resources than assembling parts and poring through cumbersome user manuals.
In close to 12 years of providing Iridium phones to clients, we’ve seen case after case where buying the lowest-priced phones did not guarantee you found the lowest cost phones.
Decisions based on price alone could cost you dearly in valuable time and money after the sale. Read on ...
SECRET #1 – All Iridium ‘kits’ are not created equal!
If it costs less, you are most likely getting less. Standard iridium satellite phone kits ought to include everything you need to stay connected. Our standard kit is complete with universal chargers for use anywhere in the world, car charger, hands free device, remote antennae, etc. Purchasing a “bare bones” kit only to have to order our standard inclusions as “add-ons” will cost far more than you planned.
SECRET #2 – Pooled airtime saves you money.
Regardless how strenuously your vendor objects, airtime can be pooled.
Any service provider selling Iridium airtime is buying that time by the minute. Pooling airtime is simply a process of keeping track of the phones a client has and making the decision to count the airtime as one ‘account’.
Iridium 9505 & 9500 demo
phones at our office.
For example: One of our clients had several phones on rate plans of 600 minutes per phone. One or two of the phones were accruing large overage charges, using 800 or more minutes. At the same time, some phones used very little or no airtime. We contacted the client and discovered that sometimes one or two phones were deployed while others sat on the shelf. We proposed pooling the airtime under a single account, which granted them the flexibility of sharing airtime among multiple phones. Pooling the airtime now saves them thousands of dollars per year.
While the overage model is more profitable for GlobaFone, it was not best for this client. Pooling airtime saves money, especially when you have a vendor who will adjust monthly minutes up and down. This benefit can reduce call rates to a fraction of what other vendors charge.
SECRET #3 – How the phone is packaged can you save time and money or cause you aggravation
In an emergency situation, would you and your staff rather open our ready-to-use kit and make calls within three minutes or receive boxes of phones requiring lengthy assembly before they are usable?
Our phones are packed neatly in a custom carrying case with the charger, user guide and accessories – all ready to go. Compare that to receiving a box from the manufacturer containing multiple packages of parts and pieces. Imagine having to figure out where everything will go and how to ensure nothing will be lost as your team goes into action.
Quite a difference, especially when clients need to load up and ship out on deployment. Where do all the accessories go? Into pockets? Into luggage? Into a box to bounce around and become damaged and unusable? Replacing accessories for iridium phones can be costly.
We provide a convenient carrying case to protect your Iridium phone at no additional cost. While other vendors may offer a lower price, the real expense will come when you have to replace lost or broken pieces from your Iridium kit and to wade through cumbersome packaging to locate and assemble the essential components of the phone.
SECRET #4 – Not all satellite phones are user ready right out of the box.
Once you have spent a considerable sum on a very unique, high tech piece of equipment that will help you save lives, your anticipation of receiving it is exciting. Most likely, the first thing you will want to do is use the phone. Unless you receive the phones fully charged, you’ll be waiting a while
Charging phones takes critical time ~ time we consider well spent on our part when you need the phones immediately. Consider this scenario:
A tornado has ripped through a wide swath of the south, taking out landlines and dropping cell towers like toothpicks. It will be days until crews can even get in to start repairs because roads are completely blocked with debris. You urgently call your lowest-cost provider, place your order and receive your phones the next day via early express delivery. Your teams are ready to go into the affected area, areas where satellite phones will be the only source of communications. But wait…. You now have to take hours to charge the phones ~ if you can find enough electrical outlets that work.
Can you afford to be in that scenario? Make sure your service provider takes the time to charge the phones for you as an integral part of your purchase. Sending an uncharged, unprepared phone is no way to deliver critical communications tools to a client. Either insist that your provider sends you charged phones or find a new provider.
SECRET #5 – Labeling handsets with phone numbers will eliminate unnecessary delays
Labeling phones is so simple and, yet, so often not done by most vendors. Imagine your team deployed in the field and ready for action. How will you know and disseminate a list of phone numbers?
Without labeling, precious time is wasted tracking down information, searching through menus or calling your vendor (hoping they’ll actually answer the phone and deliver what you need). Labeling is such a simple step, but left undone can mean immeasurable frustration and, more importantly, cost you and your staff valuable time.
SECRET #6 – Simple directions are hard to find
Your lowest-cost provider supplied phones have arrived ready for you to use immediately! Really? Perhaps not.
Imagine the questions you’ll encounter upon opening the pre-packaged factory box. “So…how do you make a phone call? “Hey - anybody know how to use this thing?”
Think of poring through indexes and chapters of the in-depth owner’s manual provided by Iridium. Conversely, think of a one page laminated Quick Start Guide that enables you to be operational in just a few minutes. Our copyrighted guide provides step-by-step instructions for immediately making a call, whether to a mobile number, landline or another Iridium satellite phone.
SECRET #7 – You will need more than a phone
Satellite phones are typically the communication vehicle when all other means of communication fail. If you are an emergency responder, a government agency that must communicate to its constituency during a crisis or a senior executive chartered with the responsibility of business continuity during a man-made or natural disaster, your satellite phone service provider must be available to you and your staff 24 hours a day?
Will your lowest cost provider be there when you need them? Can the lowest cost provider afford an investment of a highly trained support staff? Will they be available 7 x 24? During an emergency response or business continuity situation, will you have real support from real people who listen to and respond to your concerns and needs?
Working with a satellite phone provider that answers your calls anytime is critical to ensuring you and your team can function with the greatest speed, efficiency and effectiveness. The lesson is simple: Don’t ever work with a provider who doesn’t provide 24 x 7 services.
CONCLUSION
Buying your Iridium phones from the lowest cost provider will always prove to be the most expensive option. From packaging to labeling, to charging your phone, you can spend hours and a lot of stress preparing your phones to work when you need them to. We are currently helping a client to recover from substandard service that has left them unsure about everything from hardware, the details of their service plans and what should be standard kit equipment. This is not a responsible position to be in if you rely on satellite communications for day-to-day operations or if the general public is relying on you to save lives during and after a disaster.
It’s your decision and in the frame of John Ruskin’s quote above, we offer a final thought: As you compare options to meet your needs, consider that the lowest-cost provider cannot afford to give the value-added services we’ve listed above because their DRIVING goal is to sell phones. They see you as a customer, a single transaction. In many cases, they have not unpacked, inspected or tested the phones you will be relying on.
Choose a provider who prices accordingly and provides all the value-added, time-saving, stress-reducing services we’ve listed and treats you as a client, a provider interested in taking care of you, building a relationship and nurturing that relationship over a long period of time. And that is an additional cost you simply cannot afford to pass up.
