At Copitex, we like to keep our customers up to date on the latest news and trends regarding business machines.
Reprinted by LaserResource.com
4 Ways to Get Your Printer or Copier Fixed – Which is Right for You?
You work at a company that has office equipment, and that office equipment breaks down from time to time. Annoying as it is, it will happen. If you think about it, most printers and copiers do a lot of work between breakdowns, sometimes thousands or hundreds of thousands of jobs between breaks, most employees can’t hold that kind of record without a mistake, so they’re not really THAT bad. There are four ways to go about fixing your printer or copier when it breaks down. You can either:
- Fix it internally using IT resources. I tend to advise not to take this route because of the cost it can have on your company. I have written about this here, here, and here.
- Throw out the device and buy a new one. This really only makes sense if the printer was one of those $200 ones you bought from Staples or if the repairs outweigh the cost of the device.
- You can find a company to do repairs on a break/fix model. This works well for low volume devices or small businesses.
- You can work with a managed provider and get a maintenance contract that supports your devices.
I want to focus on the last two options since I covered the first one before and the second one is pretty easy to understand.
Break/fix repair model
This model is a reactive approach to printer and copier maintenance. Having a service company come out and repair your broken device only. Service is normally changed at an hourly rate or at a flat rate for certain jobs depending on the service company you use.
Many providers, Lasers Resource included, offer block time agreements. This approach makes budgeting simpler since you pay for a certain amount of hours up front and then use them only when they are needed. Avoiding large repair bills that could pop up without warning and without budget to support it.
As I mentioned before, a break/fix model works best for printers and copiers with low monthly print volume or for small businesses. Most maintenance contracts have a monthly minimum fee that low volumes don’t meet, making you over pay, so getting service only when needed is right for this.
Service contract with a managed provider
Having a managed print service (MPS) contract with a certified partner (like Copitex) is another route you can take. This is normally the best bet for large fleets of printers and copiers or for high volume. A MPS partnership can offer a lot more than just printer repair for your devices. MPS can monitor your fleet for any concerns or issues and give attention to problems before a break happens. Fleet monitoring can also extend the life of your devices by moving high and low volume devices around to share the load in sort of a “rotate the tires” kind of way. A MPS partner can also work with you to come up with a long term strategy on replacements, moves, opening of new locations, and more.
There is a lot more to the printing world than just printers and copiers as well. A MPS partner can work with you to determine any software solutions that your business would benefit by. Maybe you work at a doctor office and would like to fax right from your Outlook, or you scan and save a lot of documents in accounts receivable and would like to be able to cut your work in half by a capture and route solution. There is a lot of over looked benefits and cost saving solutions MPS can provide that is best when in conjunction with a managed contract.
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