Stop the credit-crunch drain on your hard-earned revenues: your Top Tips

Hard times can create a rich fertilizer. It nurtures and feeds all the things that our businesses can ill afford right now.

With insolvencies on the increase the risk of bad debt or non-payment is ever present. There's also a propensity for fraudulent activities to grow in a downturn - all of which could have a negative impact on your bottom line.

At BT Wholesale we're keen to help you and your business customers to protect your revenues, assets and future against the growing risks generated as a result of the credit crunch. That's one reason why we recently joined forces with The Telecommunications United Kingdom Fraud Forum (TUFF) to host two free awareness-raising events for CPs that examined the problems of Dial Through Fraud. We report on these elsewhere in this issue.

 Here are 13 Top Tips that may help you:

1. Ensure you have a clear credit policy and everyone complies. Your policy should reflect your rules/terms for new   business credit vetting and in life risk profiling. We strongly recommend that you review your long-standing customers' financial risk-profile as everyone's financial circumstances could change. This time it is all about the cash and doing business on the right terms. It is key that everyone in your company understands and complies with your credit policy.

2. Know your customer! Do credit vetting and set appropriate credit limits before you sign the contracts.

3. Think about undertaking 'due diligence' checks in some cases. Do the directors of that potential new customer have a history of problems that you should know about?

4. Risk-profile all your existing customers and suppliers. Monitor their performance internally and externally using a credit vetting agency. It will be worth it. They might have passed an initial credit check with flying colours but in these uncertain times, even blue-chip/listed companies are at risk.

5. Ensure your customers pay you in accordance with your contract terms.

6. Deal with disputes quickly.

7. Understand each customer's core business sector. The credit crunch is impacting all sectors but some are being hit harder than others.

8. Protect your switch and other equipment against fraudsters by setting up and enforcing suitable access control. Consider also limiting the number of people who have access to the equipment both physically and remotely.

9. Review PBX call logging regularly to get early warning of unusual spikes in call volumes or calls to suspicious destinations.

10. Consider barring calls to the types of numbers that fraudsters find the most lucrative and that could cost you the biggest losses - for example, those to premium rate or international numbers.

11. Review your switch security measures regularly. Change your passwords and PINs from time to time and change password defaults whenever you install, upgrade, repair or maintain your equipment.

12. Be prepared. Don't wait for trouble. Start planning now. Have a clear mitigation strategy in case of an event, be it fraud or a customer not paying. Be sure everyone knows exactly what to do and can react quickly to minimise the negative impact to your business and brand caused by bad debt or fraud.

13. Share fraud intelligence. Fraudsters will move from one Service Provider to another, impacting us all. Pass on the news so that other CPs can be proactive and act before they become the next target. Encourage your business customers to talk to you about unusual call traffic patterns. The Telecommunications UK Fraud Forum (TUFF) can help you share your experiences.

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Find out how our recent events are helping CPs to fight Dial Through Fraud in this issue here.

WLR Service Provider? Pass traffic via Wholesale Calls? Our new SPHUR Lite reporting tool provides a cost-effective way to monitor call traffic. Contact Aileen O'Mahony: aileen.omahony@bt.com or speak to your BT Wholesale account management team.

Like to join TUFF in the fight against fraud? Visit their website here: www.tuff.co.uk