CHALLENGE:
This was a new customer who had been with us for less than a week. In reviewing all their contracts, we discovered that the customer was locked into a long term agreement with a provider for long distance, frame relay, and long distance access circuits. The customer was unaware that there was a clause in the agreement offering a limited window in which the customer could opt out of the contract.

SOLUTION:
Because of the expertise of CMS in dealing with various providers’ contracts, they identified the limited window four days prior to its expiration.

RESULT:
CMS assisted the customer in opting out of the current contract. This enabled CMS to negotiate new rates with the current provider for long distance, frame relay, and long distance access circuits within 5 days. As a result, the customer will save over $324,000.00 per year.

CHALLENGE:
This customer has been with CMS for six months. Because of their extraordinary growth, there has been no control or auditing of telecommuncations expense. The customer has no idea what services they have versus what they are being billed. In addition, they have recently undergone a conversion to a new long distance provider.

SOLUTION:
CMS audited each invoice for each location and posted the inventory of services to their online management software. The customer could, then, have access to all the services that were billing to or terminated at each location. CMS, then, proceeded to disconnect all unnecessary, unused, and duplicate services. They moved all casual toll that was billing at the rate of $1.00 to $2.00 per minute on the local service bills for the locations, as a result of the long distance conversion, to the corporate long distance account billing at $.04 per minute.

RESULT:
Due to the cleanup done by CMS, the customer now knows what services are billed to each location, which gives them better control. In addition, since CMS audits the bills each month, the customer knows they are only paying for what they are using. To date, the annual savings amount to $240,350.04.

CHALLENGE:
This customer has been with CMS since 2000. Their company grew through the acquisition of private dental practices. As a result, they would buy the practice as well as all the telecommunications services and expense. No review of any of the services was ever conducted. Locations were free to order service at will. In addition, the accounts payable department was overloaded. Bills did not get paid in a timely fashion. Therefore, they were being charged significant finance charges.

SOLUTION:
CMS took over the help desk function. All the locations were instructed to call CMS when placing orders. The customer was, then, able to track and approve any changes in service. In addition, changes in service from the help desk were forwarded to the person auditing and coding the bills to insure the billing matched the service. CMS audited all the telecommunications bills for accuracy. At times we found bills being paid for locations that had closed 2 and 3 years ago. All unnecessary, duplicate, or unused services were disconnected.

CMS took over the auditing and coding of all telecommunications bills. Therefore, the customer knows they are only paying for the services they are using. The customer created an EXCEL spread sheet for us to enter the data He would download the data directly into his A/P software, thereby eliminating any need for data entry. The processing time for billing was substantially reduced.

RESULT:
The customer was able to have control over all telecommunications expenditures. As a result of CMS taking over a substantial portion of the IT and AP load, the customer was able to reemploy three IT staff, two A/P clerks, and one purchasing clerk into other areas of the company. In addition to the soft dollar savings, the customer realized $459,791.88 in annual savings the first year. To date, the figure has more than tripled.

CHALLENGE:
A substantially large charge was appearing on the bills of our clients’ who had local service from a particular provider.

SOLUTION:
CMS contested the charges with the provider. They found that the charge was appearing on all their customers’ bills due to a system wide computer error.

RESULT:
CMS did not authorize their customers to pay the charges. The charges continued for three months before the error was fixed. CMS received full credit for all of their customers using this provider.