ee business phones and ee business mobiles

EE Business phones and why it’s best NOT to buy from the EE business shop

Buying EE business phones direct from EE seems to make sense. Can you get a better deal elsewhere with more flexibility and better service?

If your business is approaching the end of a mobile phone contract you may be tempted to simply go to the EE business shop and see what EE business phone deals there are. You would think that the best EE deals are available direct from the network, rather than from a dealer. You’d be wrong. Surely cutting out the middleman ensure that you get the best business mobile contract deal. Not true! Read this short guide to find out why.

EE business phones – choosing the right tariff

Business mobile dealers have access to all the tariffs which are available in the EE business shop on their website, at no extra cost to your business. EE would naturally like you to spend more on a higher monthly tariff, whereas an honest dealer will aim to limit your spend instead, so in fact your monthly bill could well be lower going through a dealer than dealing direct with the EE business shop.

In fact, it is in the dealer’s best interests to find a tariff which offers the best value to the client rather than the deal which results in the highest commission.  This should result in you developing a long term relationship where both the dealer and the client wins. Unfortunately the telecoms industry is full of dealers where this isn’t necessarily the case, with salesmen who are tempted to sign you on too high a tariff because they get a bigger bonus!

So it’s important that you understand beforehand what your usage has been in recent months and whether or not this is going to change during the lifetime of your next mobile phone contract. In this way you won’t be tempted by an offer of an extra 25GB on a higher tariff because you understand that you’d just be paying for something you don’t need.

Choosing the right handsets

Getting handsets as part of a deal in the EE business shop is a tempting prospect because it’s so straightforward, but there are a number of downsides to this:

  • Are you getting the most competitive price for that particular handset? A good dealer should be able to source handsets at competitive prices which beat the prices in the EE business shop. It’s good to consider the SIM and network connection as completely separate from the handset itself.
  • Getting a new handset from the EE business shop means that it will be locked to the EE network. [Edit: this is no longer the case as Ofcom rules obliges networks to sell ‘unlocked handsets’]. You may think this doesn’t matter if you intend to continue to use EE business phones, but what if:
    • You want to move network at the end of the contract, perhaps because of a better deal, or because your office/home has moved and the signal is much better on O2, Vodafone or Three? In that situation, you’ll have to pay to have your handset unlocked, or buy a new handset.
    • You upgrade your handset and decide to sell the old on an auction site like ebay. An unlocked handset which works on any network will attract more bidders and will therefore generate a higher price. So again, you’ll either have to pay to have your EE business phone unlocked, or you’ll have to accept that there are fewer bidders and probably sell it for a lower price.

Is an EE business mobile even right for you?

You may be loyal to a brand, but perhaps it’s not necessarily the best choice for your business. You may have had bad a experience with another network in the past, but network coverage can change so it’s worth reviewing the situation. Around our office in Beverley the EE signal has always been excellent, with O2 a distant second (we won’t even mention Vodafone!) But in the past year the O2 signal has improved significantly so that EE is no longer a clear winner.

You can use any of these pages to check signal coverage in your area (although nothing beats a real world test – we have a number of test phones with different network sims so that we can ensure the coverage map is telling the truth!):

EE: https://ee.co.uk/why-ee/mobile-coverage

O2: https://www.o2.co.uk/coveragechecker

Vodafone: https://www.vodafone.co.uk/network/status-checker

3: http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Network/Coverage

And what about service from the EE business shop?

Unless you are really, really important (the Queen, for example, or the most recent winner of Love Island) then the person at the end of the EE help line isn’t going to know who you are. They won’t have any idea what your business does, and won’t know what your specific requirements are from an EE business phone.

This is where a (good) mobile dealer comes into their own. When our clients call us at Simpatico, we take pride in providing a level of customer service which comes out of developing long term relationships. It sounds a bit clichéd to say that we rely on good, old-fashioned customer service, but well…we do. Sorry for that mini-advert!

I want an EE business mobile. Where should I get one?

As you’d expect, we’re going to advise you to visit our online business mobile shop, where you can browse a range of the latest handsets: including flagship models like the Apple iPhone 15 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, or Z Fold5 to more budget-friendly options such as the Samsung A04s and older iPhone models that still pack a punch.

We have some great tariffs available for EE, as well as the other major networks. We’re confident of securing you the very best deal for your next business mobile.