Is using your business mobile as a boredom buster for your child costing you?

Do you rely on your mobile phone for your business?

Do you often let your children play with it when they are bored?

In todays blog I am are going to highlight some of the reasons why you shouldn’t use one of your most important business tools as a boredom buster toy for children, the effects it can have on your business and solutions to fix it.

Why is your mobile important in your business

• It is a way that people can contact you to hire your services or buy your products – especially if it is your preferred method of contact
  • If your mobile is not working or not accessible
    • Important business calls could go unanswered
    • They could be answered accidentally by child and caller hear everything in the background (lets hope you are sweet 100% of the time) – Not very professional to call a business and have the call answered but no response due to child playing with the phone and not realising there is a caller on the other end
    • Child could answer the call and talk to the caller – again not very professional, and child may release information that caller should not be made aware of (eg: you have changed a business meeting and child says you are going to the park, or heaven forbid tells the caller you are in the bathroom – yes it is funny on a personal level but some businesses might not see it as funny, it also wastes their time having to call back multiple times to talk to you and they may take their business somewhere else)
    • Important messages are deleted prior to you receiving them
    • Could drain battery life and you miss important call or can’t use your mobile in an emergency
• You can access all aspects of your business while out of the office
  • Most of these apps people usually don’t set up pin protects or tell the child what the main pin is, appointments get deleted, apps accidentally deleted with important records and information on them
• Phone broken then you are with out a phone for a number of days, not to mention the cost to purchase a new one or re-contract the phone.
• Social media might accidentally get hacked – if you manage clients social media accounts posts / photos maybe posted.

Issues you might not be aware of with a child “playing” on your phone

• Ringing up huge phone bills for calling random numbers (possibly international calls), while play calling.
• Prank calling (Pocket calling – call, other person answers, all they can hear is the noise from the phones end)
• “Buying” apps using your phone
  • Game credits
  • Games
  • Pressing buttons and accidentally buying from one of the many apps you have on your phone
  • Making purchases from one click apps that you have set up (eg: Apple Store, Clothes Warehouse Apps – apps are getting developed to make online purchases easier to do with one click – not many stores have a refund policy because your child has accidentally placed the order as an option for a refund)
• Reset the phone to factory condition (that means EVERYTHING on your phone gets deleted) and guess what it is only 2 buttons that need to be pressed for this to occur.
• Deleting Apps / documentation etc
• Accidentally breaking phone

Solutions

• Ensure your phone has pin lock (or even better fingerprint unlocking)
• If you are going to let children play with the phone turn it to flight mode and turn off internet access (be careful as this is really easy to turn back on accidentally), including disabling Wi-Fi
• Disable the notifications and Today views on the locked screen
• Disable Control Center (this will help prevent the child from being able to reactive internet etc without going into settings)
• Enable Do Not Disturb (however this will prevent all calls and notifications of messages coming through so don’t forget to turn it back on)
• Enable Guided Access
• Disable Multitasking Gestures
• Enable Restrictions
• Remove app log in details or request password for all purchases
• Pin codes on important apps
  • Emails
  • Calendars

Or if that is all to hard to remember and keep on top of-

• Use an old phone that is no longer in use for children entertainment (most contracts now allow you to get a new mobile every 12 – 24 months, there is usually nothing wrong with the old mobile other then it is outdated)
• Purchase an iPod that allows for games but not connected to phone services
• Set up individual pre-paid account for children (with iTunes etc)
  • Set limits on how much they can use and when it will be recharged (if they use your account it can add up very quickly if you forget how many times you said yes for them to purchase something in a game)
  • Purchase prepaid credit when on special at Woolworths etc (can get as much as 50% off recharges)
• Download an app that will assist with child locking your phone.

Just remember if your mobile is an important part of your business, will it be ok if you are with out it for a period of time if it is broken, and can you afford associated “accidental” costs and issues that may occur?

Important notice

I often hear horror stories about people having to pay large phone bills, or find out they have huge iTunes charges on their credit card that they were not aware of. Some parents are “tricked” into buying “credits” for their children to play games.

99.9% of games DO NOT require “credit” to play.

The purchase of credit, lives etc is to progress through the game QUICKER. Most games are a game of skill, so instead of paying to up level and get more lives, the child should wait till lives are refreshed automatically for FREE, and as it is a game of skill isn’t it better they pass the level because they have achieved it vs passing the level because you have paid for “cheats” to help them get through? If using it as a boredom buster isn’t it better for them to focus and push themselves to find the solution to get through the level with out relying on your money to assist. Just remember back to when you were playing Nintendo and you use to get cheat codes so you could go through levels quicker or have more power, exactly the same thing but you are now paying for them.

P.S IT ADDS UP VERY QUICKLY – I have seen parents with $500 – $3,000 bills due to them not being aware of what the child is doing on their phone, or how many times they have agreed to buying “credit”.