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COMMENT
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Best Printer Brand 2015 and Most Reliable
Printer Brand 2015.
“The reliability and simplicity of
Samsung’s devices was one of the reasons
cited by HP as a key factor in their decision
to buy Samsung’s print business,” he
commented.
“Understandably, people are never
happy when a machine breaks down,”
said Doyle. “But with servicing scheduled
regularly, this can be kept to a minimum.
Our call centre staff are trained to resolve
the majority of issues over the phone.
When an engineer does need to make a
visit, they’re given a time slot and all of
our cars are electronically tracked so we
can keep customers informed as to when
they’ll arrive.”
Stafford also disagrees with the
contention that customers are frustrated
with the number of visits needed to keep
machines functioning. “That’s not our
experience, our data shows that copies
between calls have increased dramatically
in recent years,” he said, adding: “All our
manufacturers including HP, have made
great strides to improve reliability in all
areas. Our customers are benefiting from
the improved productivity and reduced
costs these improvements have delivered.
We don’t envisage these improvements
slowing down anytime soon.”
Bowmer said that with the recent
development in technologies and new
strategic approaches to the delivery of
service, ZenOffice customers have seen
a significant reduction in the number
of service calls. “It is not unusual for
customers to have as little as one to two
service calls per year on such a device,” he
explained.
Preventative maintenance
Goodall agrees: “A proactive company such
as Office Evolution schedules preventative
maintenance calls which allow many issues
to be addressed before the customer is
even aware they exist. In addition, onsite
supplies can be replenished and future
calls scheduled along with any customer
questions being answered at the time,”
he said.
“We find that most customers
appreciate the preventative calls and
these dramatically reduce the occurrence
of breakdown calls,” he said, adding that
the company still sees a huge transfer
of customers’ print from purchased print
solutions to a managed MFP, both saving
money and adding convenience. “Just
this month, a major international office
furniture manufacturer replaced its fleet of
MFPs with us and is phasing out individual
printers that are not supported, due to the
cost implications,” he added.
Tunley said: “We pride ourselves on
providing response times that the printer
industry can only dream of. Our feedback
says that customers are willing to pay for
the service that we offer as a managed
print provider. They like to feel that there
is support available and that they can rely
on us to solve their problems quickly and
efficiently.
“Planned preventative maintenance
is an equally important part of the service
we deliver. It’s proven to help us prevent
breakdowns for customers and means we
don’t lose that human interaction that in
my opinion is an essential part of delivering
a personal customer service,” he added.
“Due to the modular component design
of the Xerox systems, a visit is not always
required,” Hamilton said. “Often faults
can be rectified remotely, either over the
phone or via remote dial in. When there is
a need for a visit from a Pinnacle or Xerox
engineer, customers tend to be kind and
welcoming.”
In conclusion, Hamilton shared some
additional thoughts: “It is evidence of a
lack of understanding on the side of HP
to think that there is something like the
copier or A3 marketplace. Modern vendors
and dealerships in our industry are experts
in managed print services and document
management systems, often getting
involved in workflow automation and
document security. Of course it is important
to ensure that the hardware is robust and
intelligent enough to be able to meet
these requirements but ultimately entry to
this market can only be achieved through
longstanding expertise and service delivery
through, well established and proven
channel partners.”
and in addition to this when a machine is
replaced, users are often left with a surplus
of cartridges and user replaceable items
for which full value cannot be regained,”
he added.
Technological advancements
“Copiers have some replaceable parts
but again, through the technological
advancements made, parts need replacing
far less often than they did years ago,”
Doyle noted. “Also, when things do go
wrong, often the user is able to fix the
problem themselves by using the simple
instructions provided or even by using
videos embedded into the system itself.”
He added: “These machines are often
working for hours every day, performing
vital tasks, so it’s to be expected that every
now and then they need to be serviced and
maintained to keep them in top shape.”
Tunley also concurs that current MFPs
do have numerous replacement parts.
“But these have reduced over the past few
years and in our experience, the number
of machines in field ratio to engineers, has
steadily increased, which shows improved
reliability in spite of the wider number
of tasks that these machines are now
performing. I will be interested to see how
the reliability of the HP product compares
when there is no third-party on-site
support,” he said.
“Most multifunctionals now work with
modular components and consumables
that can be exchanged in minutes,”
Hamilton added. “Service delivery is
optimised to such an extent that engineers
can attend to devices in four hours or
less. In most cases, customers are up and
running the same or next day. Maintenance
agreements can include spare parts, labour,
toner and other consumables for complete
peace of mind. All the customer has to add
are the two Ps – paper and power.”
Frustration about servicing
Griffin insists that frustration about
servicing is not an issue among Blackbox
customers. “We make every effort to
ensure a responsive approach to servicing
to minimise downtime for our clients,” he
said. “If a machine isn’t operational it’s a
quick way to lose business, so we ensure
that we sort out any problems as quickly
as possible.”
Blackbox servicing teams fix 98.3
per cent of problems during the first visit
to a client's premises “And we have a
central warehouse to provide parts to our
technicians as quickly as possible, Griffin
said, adding that this is helped by the fact
that the Samsung products it supplies are
incredibly reliable, reflected by a Which?
report last year which named Samsung the
Clive Hamilton,
Group Managing
Director,
Pinnacle Complete
Office Solutions
Devices have
become
incredibly
reliable and
economical to
run, we expect
continued
improvement
with both for
the foreseeable
future
Matt Goodall,
Service Director,
Office Evolution
