How many brands are you expected to be good at?

[Phrag]

I should have put 4. Officially, we work on Kyocera, Konica Minolta, Fuji Xerox MFP's and HP Printers.

BUT I have worked on the odd Samsung, Lexmark, and Canon.

I remember I was only 2 years into my current job, trained solely on Konica Minolta, and went to another of our branch in the state to help with their backlog. First job I got was on a Canon Wide Format printer. I thought "What the flippin hell do I do with this thing?" Eventually decided to order one of those waste ink tanks, and fixed it. Was pretty chuffed about that.

[mbcruzin]

Currently we sell and service Konica Minolta, Ricoh, Canon, Sharp, Samsung, Lexmark, and HP. Plus the the assorted Ricoh/Canon Wide Format and Duplicators. Along with Shredders, Cutters, Lamentations, folders, etc.

[Blizzoo]

As I have stated before, I am an office equipment whore, I will do any brand for money. I also taught myself to work on shredders and plotters because they would call the shop and the shop would give me the ticket. Now when they call the shop, the shop just gives them my number and lets me book my own calls. I find it challenges me to stay sharp and exposes me to different styles of design.

I know that feeling and somehow you realize wich brands do you like .
I had calls where was no manual and google the fault on client site.

Keeps you with lot's of knowing

[subaro]

The principles of troubleshooting is what i think matters. I am not the brightest bulb in the room, but give me any machine and i will accept the challenge. The so called five senses are the starters. Most imaging devices works basically on the same principles and if you are confident in using the basic tools, i think you would not run from things that seems daunting. You also must like this type of work. Many techs just stick to what they are trained on and never want to learn anything different, just the paycheck on friday and to hell with the rest. Those days are gone.
There are drawbacks to servicing many brands as your company parts stock can get out of control and you will eat loss. aslo things like f/w update that are propriety and you essentially have to beg and wait days or weeks for answers can lead to fustration. But if there is support and rewards are inline, bring it on.
I repaired my co-worker garage door opener and i never seen one before. but a little investigation pointed to a stuck switch, swap it one of the other and he was a happy camper. door would open by itself and close sometimes was the complaint.

beam me up scotty. done here

[andyf424]

Konica Minolta, Kyocera, HP, KIP, RISO. Anything from a little disposable printer to production color with all the finishers. I've been doing this for only 2 years but I learn through immersion and my employer certainly gave me an opportunity to do exactly that. Nothing like having to ask the user where the power switch is to keep you on your toes. If it's under contract, I've got no problem spending too long trying to figure out a machine I'm not trained on. I figure that's the cost my company has to pay for having devices under contract and not training techs. I just hate looking like an idiot when it's chargeable....

I still get calls on NEC machines that are re-branded KM boxes, or old KM 7022's that you can't get parts for. Fun stuff but, we've got a couple of vet's with 20-30 years of experience. They save my butt with the old machines and I help them out with the networking crap. Seems to work out pretty well.

[Ingersoll]

Started learning on HPs, trained and certified on Canon, Kyocera, Sharp, Muratec and Oki-data. Also have CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+ and CompTIA PDI+, certified HP (APS) Accredited Platform Specialist LaserJet. But as others have stated - will work on anything if I can get a manual.

[sharptech1]

all of them. but i refuse to work on something another business pushed out the door and doesn't show up for service. time to buy a new one

[matthewr88]

All of them.

My thoughts exactly lol

[Lagonda]

I expect the techs we employ to be proficient at at least one make, but at times I'm sadly disappointed.

[subaro]

There are advantages and disadvantages for servicing many brands.
advantages... most of all you have a wider spectrum of potential customers and that means more business and therefore more income which equals more profit and if you share your profit, your employees will be more happy and a win-win situation.
disavantages... techs have to carry more parts, more time to research, more dealer authorization, more human memory. your parts warehouse database becomes huge and parts machines stock bigger. more disgruntled techs, especially slower ones. of course there are many more factors, but this is what i can think of now.

I would say four to five brands is sufficient with two out of those being more dominant in numbers.