The telecommunications carriers know that companies are facing hard times. They themselves have probably had to tighten their belts and maybe even had to lay off a few employees until things pick up. While they will not give you your service for free, they are still a business after all; they will work with you to change your agreement so that you can continue to be a good customer.

 If you are facing difficulty paying your bills, it is best to start asking for rate reductions or changes in the terms of service before you default. Before a payment is expected, call the carrier rep and ask to work out a deal. You may be able to get reduced rates, downgrade or discontinue some of your services or use reduced-cost services to cut your overall price. The carrier would rather keep a company that is paying for slightly fewer services than to lose one altogether. 

In addition to reducing rates or changing service plans, you might be able to use remote access or VPN to reduce your costs even further. Whatever you can do to keep the cost of your telecom services within your current budget, you should. Remember, if you are forced to close your doors because you have defaulted on a number of payments, you are not just hurting one person or one company, it will affect everybody.

 The telecommunications provider, as mentioned previously, would like to continue providing you with service, even at a reduced rate, but there is more to the story. Collections costs companies big money. They would prefer not to have to send out termination letters and send accounts to third parties for collections. Losing a customer account is one thing; losing a customer account and sending them to collections is another. In order to keep from having to do this, the carriers would prefer to work with the companies so that they can both continue to do business and hope in the meantime that the economy picks back up.

The telecom carrier will not call and volunteer to provide a lowered rate for their services. They will not ask if you need to change your service plan or if you need to renegotiate the terms of your contract. You have to make contact and let them know what your needs are so that they can work with you. Do not wait until you are struggling to pay your bills or make payroll. Start working with your service providers and vendors as soon as you know you might need this assistance so that you can see who is willing to work with you and who is completely refusing to be amenable at all.