Not all business mobile providers are as customer-focused as they should be. What any provider should do is prioritise your organisational needs and ensure that you receive maximum value for money. However, many fail to do this – often resulting in poor overall service and also leaving you wide open to extra costs.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
If any of the following scenarios apply to you, it’s time to switch provider.
1. Your tariff is off-the-shelf and rigid
Each business is different to the next, structurally and operationally, so each one needs its own bespoke mobile plan.
You shouldn’t have to compromise and pay for more airtime or data than your workforce actually needs, nor should you settle and make do with insufficient allowances.
A good mobile provider will build a plan around your organisation’s specific needs, rather than give you an off-the-shelf package direct from the network. That’s the difference between a mobile reseller and an independent service provider (ISP).
Crucially, your plan should be flexible, because your needs will likely change over time. For example, if you have employees who often travel overseas for work, it would make sense for your tariff to include a large allowance of global data – plus the freedom to add more or take some away wherever necessary.
Similarly, if your workforce is spread across the UK, you need your mobile plan to be geographically diverse and resilient, in order to ensure optimum coverage in each region. For this to happen, you’ll need access to several mobile networks – not just one – so that your employees can switch SIMs whenever they need to. If a provider treats this as a special accommodation, that’s a red flag; you should expect it as a standard offering, because it's a necessary requirement for modern businesses that want to run effectively.
A mobile reseller can’t offer that sort of flexibility. When you’re signed up to a rigid plan, you’re open to bill-shock as well as hindering your operations. You can and should demand flexibility from your mobile provider. You are paying a premium for their service, after all.
2. They’re not proactive
The beauty of having a proactive mobile provider is that they preemptively solve problems for you.
Your provider has visibility on how much airtime and data your business is using, and therefore they can anticipate when you are at risk of exceeding your allowances. At this point, they should get in touch and offer a solution, such as adding extra gigabytes of data before you go over, rather than waiting until you go over the limit. Avoiding unnecessary expenses like bill-shock should be one of your provider’s priorities.
This links back to the point about flexibility. If your organisation expands its operations into a new geographical area that is served better by a different mobile network, your mobile provider should proactively recommend adding a number of that network’s SIMs to your plan.
Their job, to put it bluntly, is to make sure that your employees are well connected wherever they are, so they should be looking for ways to constantly optimise your plan for you.
3. Their customer support is 9-5
In modern business, operations don’t finish at 5 p.m. each day, so neither should a mobile provider’s support. If an emergency or even a more minor issue arises after-hours, the best outcome for your business is for it to be resolved there and then, not at 9:01 a.m. the following day, or first thing on Monday. This is especially important to businesses that run their operations 24/7 and users that travel globally, we are living in a connected world where uptime is critical to how a business operates.
4. Security isn’t a priority
Smartphones and tablets are entry points to your network, which means they need the same sophisticated protection as your PCs and laptops in order to prevent unauthorised access, malware infection and other breaches. In other words, your perimeter of protection must expand along with your EM strategy.
An unsecured mobile device leaves its user – and therefore the entire business network – open to the ever-expanding mobile threat landscape. Your provider, therefore, should recognise that mobile security is an essential part of the mobile offering.
You need a combination of mobile device management (MDM) and mobile threat defence (MTD) working together to ensure multi-level security across your entire fleet of devices, with accessible reporting that ensures visibility on your end.
Choose a mobile provider that genuinely cares about your business
For a provider to give you the highest possible level of service, they need to truly understand your wider business. Only then will they be able to give you the proactive advice that solves issues quickly or, better still, before they even arise.
