Customer ignorance issue of today, place smart ass comments below

[copiertec]

When to a local branch of national corporation. YGIC (young gal in charge) said copier quit sending scan to emails. After checking over, I told her that it looks like corporate IT is stopping copier from going out on internet. YGIC said she doesn't want the copier to get on the internet, she only wants it to send email. I told her the copier uses the internet to send her email. YGIC says it is on our network and my office is only 20 feet from it, the copier doesn't go out on the internet to send her email, it emails inside the building. I suggested we call her Corporate IT, they do some checking, they said they will be coming out in 5 days to fix "stuff". So as I am pulling the plug on this "adventure" the YGIC says I think you should make that scan to email until IT comes to fix "stuff" on our network.


Please enter smart ass comments below. I just wonder who slept with whom to get her in charge.

LMAO..agreed. I completely understand! I know I am far from perfect and still have a lot to learn, but the STUPIDITY I deal with on a daily basis almost makes me want to bang my head on the wall. It amazes me how some of these higher ups in some companies even dress themselves and make it to work or even do the work! MORONS!
Speaking of who is sleeping with who...I have met some " IT administrators," ... that can not even load a print driver, but have a title. I could go on but all of us techs know how it goes. I'm just the "copier guy" but clients want me to fix everything!

[tonerhead]

As it is, our company has a policy of at least verifying for free. Then if customer wants it fixed, it is billable. The trouble with this policy is you are there for 10 minutes and you charge $$$$$$$$$. Lots of times this really pisses the customer off more and they leave you at end of lease. I've tried talking with mgmt that simple stuff should be free or build some IT into their contract to begin with. It's always a slippery slope. Major corps like this one, bill the heck out of. The simple mom and pops though is a different story. So mgmt started a help desk. Works great. Trouble is customer calls in, you pull up their account (no IT services), the reply is we can try to fix over phone for $$ or we can send a tech out for $$$$. What do you want to do? I think we are pissing alot of customers off this way. If something simple, help desk should say, let's fix it no charge now. If complicated the help desk should say, it might take considerable time and we would need to send a tech for a bill of $$$.

For those of us who have been around a while, remember when we used to load drivers for free as we wanted the customers to print, use our equipment, burn through the toner that the customer bought so our company can make additional revenue. I still remember getting disciplined by the service mgr on a ride along for not asking customer if everyone is using our mfp for printing. Clicks brings us revenue he said. My, how times have changed.

[tonerhead]

LMAO..agreed. I completely understand! I know I am far from perfect and still have a lot to learn, but the STUPIDITY I deal with on a daily basis almost makes me want to bang my head on the wall. It amazes me how some of these higher ups in some companies even dress themselves and make it to work or even do the work! MORONS!
Speaking of who is sleeping with who...I have met some " IT administrators," ... that can not even load a print driver, but have a title. I could go on but all of us techs know how it goes. I'm just the "copier guy" but clients want me to fix everything!

IT administrators that can't load a print driver, very few can. It is fritten amazing how many times we get called for slow printing or printer offline only to find the IT person let WindBlows load a universal driver on a WSD port. Do I hear an AMEN out there?

I also wish I had a nickel for every time some one asks "Do you know anything on hooking up a home theatre, fixing a garage opener, why doesn't the shredder work anymore, do you think my home computer has a virus or something. Basically asking our opinions on anything broken. Trying to get something for nothing. I remember a jerk lawyer asking questions trying for some free networking troubleshooting, I asked if he gave out free legal advice. He never asked again.

[copiertec]

As it is, our company has a policy of at least verifying for free. Then if customer wants it fixed, it is billable. The trouble with this policy is you are there for 10 minutes and you charge $$$$$$$$$. Lots of times this really pisses the customer off more and they leave you at end of lease. I've tried talking with mgmt that simple stuff should be free or build some IT into their contract to begin with. It's always a slippery slope. Major corps like this one, bill the heck out of. The simple mom and pops though is a different story. So mgmt started a help desk. Works great. Trouble is customer calls in, you pull up their account (no IT services), the reply is we can try to fix over phone for $$ or we can send a tech out for $$$$. What do you want to do? I think we are pissing alot of customers off this way. If something simple, help desk should say, let's fix it no charge now. If complicated the help desk should say, it might take considerable time and we would need to send a tech for a bill of $$$.

For those of us who have been around a while, remember when we used to load drivers for free as we wanted the customers to print, use our equipment, burn through the toner that the customer bought so our company can make additional revenue. I still remember getting disciplined by the service mgr on a ride along for not asking customer if everyone is using our mfp for printing. Clicks brings us revenue he said. My, how times have changed.

I understand your point, but, including free IT work opens Pandora's box, with today's technology. Networks, now more than ever, are far too complicated to do free stuff such as loading a driver, setting up email or scan stuff for free, not to mention the liabilities. I used to do things free for clients and it only bit me in the ass because once something went wrong, not even related to what I did...BOOM! they would rat me out as soon as they call the office, " your tech was just out here updated my driver and now I can't receive emails.
If my company does not charge for network related stuff... the next company will. An IT guy once told me, " if I touch their keyboard or network equipment... there is a charge regardless of how simple the issue may be, it's his intellectual property they are paying for.

[tonerhead]

"I understand your point, but, including free IT work opens Pandora's box, with today's technology. Networks, now more than ever, are far too complicated to do free stuff such as loading a driver, setting up email or scan stuff for free, not to mention the liabilities"



True, that is why every contract we sell, networked or not, the customer is signing a waiver that we are not held liable for our connectivity services. Computer companies that I am aware of make the customer sign the same. I've only had one customer try to bite me for the work done. Many, many years ago I was loading a print driver on a server, then BSOD!!. I did absolutely nothing other than put the cd in the drive, the customer was sitting right there. Well, their server would not come out of it's funk, the hdd crashed, that being said the customer backed up data 3 times a week on tape drive. The problem with their tape drive is the 2 tapes had been written/rewritten hundreds of times over the past 5 years and were totally worthless for backups. Felt bad that the customer had to go through this, however, whose fault was it really? It was not our fault certainly. They tried pressing the issue, but we had our backs covered. Stuff happens in the computer world, if you are not prepared for the worst, it will happen to you.

Back to the topic, I think by helping out the mom and pops, you create good will and loyal customers. When I see 10 helpdesk calls in the past few months, the law must be laid down that we do offer connectivity options. For the most part though the mom and pops don't take advantage of us. I don't think loading drivers or scan to email or folder is that big of a liability. In any case that is why there are waivers signed. Customers with no maintenance, they are plain on their own, we bill to even touch their keyboard.

[Phil B.]

[QUOTE=tonerhead;735028]As it is, our company has a policy of at least verifying for free. Then if customer wants it fixed, it is billable. The simple mom and pops though is a different story. [QUOTE]

-=I have always spent time on the phone with Existing Customers and newbies -$0-...
...Now a New Client I will try and help over the phone _IF_ possible .. if they want me there.. $25 within 25mi of my starting point = If they want it fixed per my suggestions ( or part there of ) eval rolled into service labor
Existing Customer within 25mi of my starting point -$0-.

Evals ALWAYS include complete cleaning tires/insides/glass/outside -in order to make a proper eval. * Most customers see that as "Value Added Service"* ( I also try and talk them into yearly/biyear/quarterly cleaning depend on environment. )

Yes I have been burned... but I always try to offer at least 2 versions of repair - OEM *if possible* or Reliable Compatible parts.
ALL parts OVER value -MUST- be replaced.

As far as supplies.. I have only 3 USA made compatible toners/drums *not all models/brands* That I will support.. if they use OTHER than those vendors .. and -IF- problem is because of other brand toner/drum... THEY PAY.

Another Policy .. CPA or other "RUSH time" type existing customers get pushed to top of "Service Call Board"
My 50cents ( WTF is 2cents worth now? )

[gneebore]

As it is, our company has a policy of at least verifying for free. Then if customer wants it fixed, it is billable. The trouble with this policy is you are there for 10 minutes and you charge $$$$$$$$$. Lots of times this really pisses the customer off more and they leave you at end of lease. I've tried talking with mgmt that simple stuff should be free or build some IT into their contract to begin with. It's always a slippery slope. Major corps like this one, bill the heck out of. The simple mom and pops though is a different story. So mgmt started a help desk. Works great. Trouble is customer calls in, you pull up their account (no IT services), the reply is we can try to fix over phone for $$ or we can send a tech out for $$$$. What do you want to do? I think we are pissing alot of customers off this way. If something simple, help desk should say, let's fix it no charge now. If complicated the help desk should say, it might take considerable time and we would need to send a tech for a bill of $$$.

For those of us who have been around a while, remember when we used to load drivers for free as we wanted the customers to print, use our equipment, burn through the toner that the customer bought so our company can make additional revenue. I still remember getting disciplined by the service mgr on a ride along for not asking customer if everyone is using our mfp for printing. Clicks brings us revenue he said. My, how times have changed.

There were a few times when we got a call of "printing error and computer tech says it is a problems with the copier/printer" I do my routine of hooking their machine up to my laptop and print fine. Then I ask them to do a test print and get gibberish. Look over their shoulder and see the printer selected was an HP4. Now I understand that early on with desktop laser printers the HP4 was a standard and worked with most printers. But HP4 do not have ledger size print capability like a full sized copier. Had one in particular that actually set up an appointment for me to be there with their computer network contractor. I got there did my routine with my laptop and showed the network card on the copier worked fine. Hooked back up to their network and could only get sheets of gibberish from a word perfect software print job. Then I had the office manager do a local install from the driver cd and guess what worked fine immediately. Had to hand her a bill because the three repeat calls resulting in the appointment with the computer contractor was not a problem with the copier and was a software installation error. She handed it immediately to computer guru. We luckily did not renew their contract and went to a billable call basis for that reason and they also had real trouble understanding that 100 pound card stock was not usable in the paper trays but had to be used in the bypass. yes that was a repeat call from them at least once every two months

[gneebore]

I understand your point, but, including free IT work opens Pandora's box, with today's technology. Networks, now more than ever, are far too complicated to do free stuff such as loading a driver, setting up email or scan stuff for free, not to mention the liabilities. I used to do things free for clients and it only bit me in the ass because once something went wrong, not even related to what I did...BOOM! they would rat me out as soon as they call the office, " your tech was just out here updated my driver and now I can't receive emails.
If my company does not charge for network related stuff... the next company will. An IT guy once told me, " if I touch their keyboard or network equipment... there is a charge regardless of how simple the issue may be, it's his intellectual property they are paying for.

I was actually warned to avoid loading network printer drivers if there was a computer contract with another company. Instructor of the first networked copier I attended warned us about doing anything beyond handing the cd and letting the customer install the drivers even locally. I agreed with the instructor and explained why. Many years before we sold networked copier we did sell electronic typewriters. Which had a parallel port for computer printing. We sold a new typewriter and I delivered it. Now just for clarity the operating system on the computer was win 95 this is how long ago it was. Drivers for the typewriter were actually on a single copy protected 5 1/4 floppy disk and the disk was in a sealed envelope in the box with the typewriter. I opened the disk put it in the floppy drive and it failed to be read. Pulled the disk out and a layer of dust was all over it. Took the disk cleaned it off and took a blank disk and formatted it in the drive to see if that worked. It did and I installed the drivers. However when the test print was brought up I overheard the hard drive make some really funny noises. Told them they needed to get their computer tech (they had their own service dept for computer problems) check the drive because they are not supposed to make that kind of noise. And the floppy drive was encrusted with dust. Even wrote it on the ticket they needed to have the computer checked by their service dept. And they had to initial that part of the ticket. Three months later we got a call from them that their computer died and the repairman said it was my fault and sent us a bill for the drive replacement and labor because there was s destructive virus introduced. And I was the only non-employee to touch the machine. Luckily I did have a handy copy where they were warned of possible problems and actually had their initials and sent a fax of that to their service guy and he called back. Seems he did not realize that I was there over ninety days ago and actually noted that he needed to check the pc out. He dropped the bill since even he didn't warranty anything after 30 days. And didn't know the drive was making noise that long ago.

[copiertec]

Sounds like we share some of the same experiences with clients. Our company just took over service for a large insurance insurance provider, apparently a tech from another copier vendor installed some kind of software on their server and it crashed it... completely. I do not know all the details, however, we were briefed that any and all IT related issues are strictly done through their IT dept, no exceptions.

[tonerhead]

Sounds like we've all been in the same boat at one time or another. Sometimes though you've got to take a chance or two, just make sure your back is covered. A followup of YGIC, their IT came by on Tuesday, fixed the issue. We looked like heros to them because their IT did just exactly what we said would be done and everything worked again. That's the victories you get. Another customer called me this week, had printing trouble, I walked her through it over the phone. Her reply was I've had 3 different guys from our IT dept in for this very same printing issue, why don't they know what to do? I said I don't know why, it's not that difficult to do. Another victory. Building customer loyalty!!

A few years ago my son broke his tibia and we had him in the ER. They had him in a brace for the weekend as only Orthopaedic sets bones. Monday we took him to the very same hospital, so Orthopaedic could put a cast on the broken bone. I mean I thought all Doctors were trained on casting bones. At least they were when I was growing up. I was not thrilled about it, that my son had to take pills and sit all weekend. I just wanted someone to take care of the issue instead of passing the buck. That's what it seemed like at the time. We got a Dr. saying very few physicians set bones anymore because of LIABILITY.

Isn't it the same with copiers? We are trained to load drivers, set up scanning, help with printing. People are calling us for help, we should do it (regardless if we charge or not, that's another thing). If a customer has IT, fine they can watch over us. I'm rural, probably 90% have no IT and only hire IT to fix their computers. Yes there is a LIABILITY, that is why they sign a WAIVER. We know how we feel when IT passes it off as a printer issue. I've had my share of customers ask if we do IT work also because their rental IT guys are always passing the buck blaming problems on others rather than taking care of problems.

Bottom line is it is about taking care of the customer, not trying to squeeze out the last penny, not trying to pass blame, etc. This is where America is bad..... it's not my job, pass the buck.

Side note, wouldn't you love to go back in a time machine and shoot the idiot that sold the first toner inclusive contract? The copier industry has been sliding downhill ever since.