Long-Term Business VoIP Contracts Benefit One Side – And Its Not Your Side

Many Business VoIP providers want you to sign a multi-year business VoIP contract when signing up for their service. In exchange, they generally offer a slightly lower price on their service. This locks you into a multi-year contract even if the VoIP provider fails to maintain an adequate quality of service or fails to keep their product up-to-date with the latest technologies. This is a loose loose proposition for your company.

Another big reason not to sign a long-term contract is that your business can experience a slowdown. Most companies respond by reducing expenses. A long-term contract prevents your business from cutting costs because many business VoIP providers have language in their service contracts that locks your company into a minimum number of phone users even if you no longer need those users.

Service contracts only benefit one party and that party is always the party requesting the contract.

To show you how completely one sided a service contract is, what do you think would happen if during the contract period, your company needed to increase the service above the terms on the initial contract. Do you think the company would say no, you have to wait until your contract expires? Of course not, they will happily let you pay more, they just don’t want you to pay less.

If You Are Forced To Sign A Term Contract, At least Ask For a Business Downturn Clause

If you have no other options and you are forced to sign a term service contract, at least include a business downturn clause. Some telecom companies have started offering a “business downturn flexibility” clause in the contracts to both new and existing customers.

These new clauses are a ploy to keep companies locked in. Phone companies are not under any pressure to improve the quality of their services because they have had a virtual monopoly. VoIP is a real threat to this industry. Instead of innovating, telecommunications companies have responded by locking you in. Long term, this strategy is doomed.