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One of the more frustrating customer service examples comes every month in your business’ phone bill. A common practice among phone provides is to advertise and promote a rate for service, only to tack on surcharges and other “pass through” items as a means to deflect the responsibility for their rates being different. 

This practice is entrenched in the industry, both from the traditional phone service providers as well as the new VoIP phone service entrants in the marketplace.  Items like E911 Service Fee, Regulatory Recovery Fee, Universal Service Fund Surcharge, FCC Fees, and State Telecom Excise Taxes all are nicely tacked onto your bill and easily add 15% to 20% more onto your monthly bill.

At sipVine, we made the decision not to advertise pricing without those surcharges built in.  The only addition you’ll see from us is for local sales taxes.  We wanted our customers to experience satisfaction at all phases of the service, including receiving a simple invoice for service that matches what was promised in our quote.

Additionally, we do not promote pricing adjustments based upon term contracts.  We believe that our customers should receive the best price available and not have to sign a term agreement. 

Contact us to discuss your needs.  Our goal is to deliver a customized configuration at a price that will deliver benefits and be exactly what we proposed! 

About the author:  Mark Greim is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at sipVine, a provider of a variety of digital phone solutions and services. Mark has extensive experience working for start-up or entrepreneurial organizations and a passion for affordable, reliable, and purposeful technology solutions in those environments.   

If you currently receive multiple pages for the monthly billing of your business phone service, it is likely very confusing and filled with add-on charges.  Standard rates for service from traditional providers start increasing when including extra charges for what should be common features. Even “bundling” features can increase the cost per line. 

Some examples of add on features that create variability in standard costs per line are Caller ID Name Delivery, Caller ID Number Delivery (seriously!), Three-way Calling, Call Forward, Voice Mail, Call Blocks, and Hunt Groups. 

Additionally, variable charges for activity may creep into your billing, such as variable charges for long distance calling and directory assistance calling.  Finally, what exactly are those dreaded surcharges? Federal Subscriber Line Charges, Special E911 Taxes, Federal Universal Service Fund, State Universal Service Fund, Relay Surcharge, Special Municipal Charge, State Telecom Excise Tax, FCC Fee, and Regulatory Recovery Fees are all examples of the surcharges you may find on your bill.  These can easily add 15 to 20 percent to your monthly bill!

At sipVine, we believe our customers deserve a simple and straightforward price with an easy to understand bill.  Our hosted VoIP phone solution pricing practice exemplifies this simplicity:

• All local and long-distance calling are included in a monthly flat rate per user. Volume discounts are applied as more users are added.
• Routine system administration and maintenance are included in the per user pricing.  No trip charges or service charges will be experienced by our customers!
• Most features are included in the one flat rate!
• You will not be hit with surcharges!  sipVine absorbs all regulatory charges into our rates so you will not have any surprises on your monthly billing.
• We do all of this without the requirement of a term contract!

The only variable charges we have are for toll-free and international minutes.  The only addition to the monthly bill is for local sales tax. 

If your bill is confusing and you simply pay it month after month, take a closer look and call us for a comparison.  Register for a no obligation free offer to save even more money!  Our mission is to simply provide you with awesome features and save you money while keeping everything simple and straightforward…including your monthly bill!