View Poll Results: Is Suptreme Leader correct?

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  • Yes

    6 66.67%
  • No

    3 33.33%
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  1. #1
    Field Supervisor 500+ Posts
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    Do you think this is right?

    Got word from the high command this week. No more filezilla or stunnel to compensate for older equipment, even though it is under maintenance contract. Supreme Leader said it is not in the best interest to continue supporting this equipment. Now customers are starting to squawk. Supreme Leader says it is up to us to tell customers to upgrade as we can not do anything further with computer/network issues.

    So I ask you, my fellow copier gods to listen to my rant and add any comments. In my opinion, we should drop maintenance period on these older machines if we are not going to support them with computer/network issues. Supreme Leader doesn't want to do that though as it brings us revenue.

    What say you?


    1. Agree with Supreme Leader
    2. Disagree with Supreme Leader
    I've proved mathematics wrong. 1 + 1 doesn't always equal 2.........


    Especially when it comes to sex

  2. #2
    How'd ya manage that? 1,000+ Posts
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    Re: Do you think this is right?

    We absolutely WILL NOT implement and DO NOT support 3rd party workarounds EVER! We WILL keep a machine on a contract as long as parts and supplies remain available AND it continues to earn profit.

    If the current state of technology means an MFP is obsoleted it is incumbent on the client to upgrade or be unsupported. They may choose a workaround if they or their IT are savvy enough to get it working, but they are on their own if it does not perform. We even get called out and end up billing a contract client because it is a workaround that fails or is not satisfactory.

    So, that said I guess we agree with your high command.

  3. #3
    Service Manager 5,000+ Posts
    Do you think this is right?

    SalesServiceGuy's Avatar
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    Re: Do you think this is right?

    Easy solution. Cancel their service contract and put them on time & materials at your local market rate.

    1st onsite Service response is next day. Travel time is billable.

    The first invoice is refundable towards a new copier.

    Your Supreme Leader is needlessly turning away revenue and motivating your customer to accept an offer from the next copier sales person who walks through the door.

  4. #4
    Master Of The Obvious 10,000+ Posts
    Do you think this is right?

    blackcat4866's Avatar
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    Re: Do you think this is right?

    This is exactly the opposite of our philosophy as a company. We have 20 yr old copiers under service agreement. At a certain stage (obsolescence) the contract gets an extra paragraph.

    For those customers that are waiting for their machine to turn to dust, it gets us a few more years of service income. Eventually each one of these will need something that can't be fixed with duct tape.

    Does it gain us any additional loyalty when it comes time to buy? I think probably not. =^..^=
    If you'd like a serious answer to your request:
    1) demonstrate that you've read the manual
    2) demonstrate that you made some attempt to fix it.
    3) if you're going to ask about jams include the jam code.
    4) if you're going to ask about an error code include the error code.
    5) You are the person onsite. Only you can make observations.

    blackcat: Master Of The Obvious =^..^=

  5. #5
    Field Supervisor 500+ Posts
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    Re: Do you think this is right?

    Easy solution. Cancel their service contract and put them on time & materials at your local market rate.

    1st onsite Service response is next day. Travel time is billable.

    The first invoice is refundable towards a new copier.

    Your Supreme Leader is needlessly turning away revenue and motivating your customer to accept an offer from the next copier sales person who walks through the door.





    I think exactly the same. Once a machine reaches an age, say 6 years old, it goes on time and materials regardless. But the Supreme Leader keeps it under a maintenance plan. Now we have these 10 year old buckets out there still under maintenance. I guess it would be nice if I didn't have to take the brunt of an upset customer. Plus it sets a bad taste in the customer's mouth. Whereas in year 5, we send a simple letter stating your maintenance plan will be discontinued in 1 year and we would like to extend the opportunity to upgrade as a preferred customer. I would think a customer would be more open to something like this. Rather than thanks for the money, but we are only going to partially support your machine due to the age of it. We have machines with a bazillion copies, that break down weekly still under contract. Supreme Leader doesn't have the balls to send out cancelllation notice on these. Customer bitches about machine performance and eventially updates with someone else.
    I've proved mathematics wrong. 1 + 1 doesn't always equal 2.........


    Especially when it comes to sex

  6. #6
    Field Supervisor 500+ Posts
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    Re: Do you think this is right?

    Quote Originally Posted by blackcat4866 View Post
    This is exactly the opposite of our philosophy as a company. We have 20 yr old copiers under service agreement. At a certain stage (obsolescence) the contract gets an extra paragraph.

    For those customers that are waiting for their machine to turn to dust, it gets us a few more years of service income. Eventually each one of these will need something that can't be fixed with duct tape.

    Does it gain us any additional loyalty when it comes time to buy? I think probably not. =^..^=
    We tried to keep the older machines as long as possible. But eventually it lost us customers because we couldn't fix their machines. Parts got hard to find. Had a few analog machines with the old doc feeders with the wide long belt that pulled the originals in across the copy board glass instead of across the 1/2 inch slit glass. About 10 of them moved to another company with newer machines that the other guys came in and made sure the owners knew "And we have machines where you can get the parts" Eventually we did start dropping anything that had been out of production for five years because parts dried up and couldn't fix the blasted things. Not like experience with typewriters. Heck I could still get parts for IBM selectrics until three years ago and they wen't out of production in the mid 80's. Which a lot of older owners based their perception of how long machines could be kept running. Heck I actually had three IBM executive typewriters being used until late 2001. Yeah those machines went out of production in the mid 70's They finally got retired to the back of the supply closet because I flat out refused to work on them because of the lack of parts and of course the customer went and bought a 129 dollar portable typewriter and wonder why we woudn't put them under service contract.

  7. #7
    RTFM!! 5,000+ Posts allan's Avatar
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    Re: Do you think this is right?

    Its important that the technical and sales stays on the same page.
    Now there is two songs sung. One buy the management and on by the tech on site that disagrees.
    The customer picks up on that and this is where you can loose them.

    Was there an open discussion with the staff and a news letter to the customers about this?
    Whatever

  8. #8
    Field Supervisor 500+ Posts
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    Re: Do you think this is right?

    Quote Originally Posted by tonerhead View Post
    Easy solution. Cancel their service contract and put them on time & materials at your local market rate.

    1st onsite Service response is next day. Travel time is billable.

    The first invoice is refundable towards a new copier.

    Your Supreme Leader is needlessly turning away revenue and motivating your customer to accept an offer from the next copier sales person who walks through the door.





    I think exactly the same. Once a machine reaches an age, say 6 years old, it goes on time and materials regardless. But the Supreme Leader keeps it under a maintenance plan. Now we have these 10 year old buckets out there still under maintenance. I guess it would be nice if I didn't have to take the brunt of an upset customer. Plus it sets a bad taste in the customer's mouth. Whereas in year 5, we send a simple letter stating your maintenance plan will be discontinued in 1 year and we would like to extend the opportunity to upgrade as a preferred customer. I would think a customer would be more open to something like this. Rather than thanks for the money, but we are only going to partially support your machine due to the age of it. We have machines with a bazillion copies, that break down weekly still under contract. Supreme Leader doesn't have the balls to send out cancelllation notice on these. Customer bitches about machine performance and eventially updates with someone else.
    Worst customer we had like that was one that. We finally had to stop contracts on anything older than 6 years or anything past five years since the machine was replaced with a newer model. We had one that while not under contract they insisted on keeping an old Canon PC 720 in use. Even after they were told they needed a bigger machine. I knew their volume because they had three repeat service calls because the "machine was using too much toner" I had them put a case of paper next to the copier and use the paper only in the copier and not in anything else like for typing , faxing or printing. They use a case of paper in one week to ten days. Each toner for that machine was rated for approximately 4000 pages. Plus they had to have the fuser replaced every two to three months. They got tired of having the machine repaired by me so often they called in another company and he told them the same thing after he had to replace the fuser twice in four months. They eventually replaced that one too with a bigger machine with a page counter and actually found out they were doing an average of 8000 pages a month. Mostly because they were also duplexing the copies in the Canon by using the bypass. I knew what happened after they qui calling us because the tech they started calling was a good friend I knew from another compamy I worked for for a short while when I first moved here.

  9. #9
    Service Manager 1,000+ Posts Bix's Avatar
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    Re: Do you think this is right?

    I'm with your boss, better new printers

  10. #10
    General Troublemaker 250+ Posts ddude's Avatar
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    Re: Do you think this is right?

    Never tell the customer no, just tell them how much $$$$$$. If you are going to keep out-of-date machines on contract, make sure the contract is profitable, and gives you, the business, every upper hand. Give the customer every opportunity to upgrade, repeatedly. If the customer insists on keeping the old crap, make sure it is a cash cow for your business.
    2000 mockingbirds = 2 kilomockingbirds

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