How many brands are you expected to be good at?

[Dark Helmet]

Just out of curiosity how many differnt brands are you expected to be good at?

Do you like having the chance to work on any brand of copier out there or do you prefear to stick with one brand?

For me i find it very frustrating being sent into a office on a machine ive never seen or have very little experience on or worse nobody to call for help.

The company i used to work for was basically a chop shop and would look at virtually any thing regardless of ability to get parts, support or even manuals. After spending a hour messing around with the machine and some times not being able to come up with a solution you then get the unpleasant task of telling them you don't know what is wrong. Many people then would be mad when you told them you had to bill at least half a hour for your time even though you did not fix the problem.

Any thoughts out there?

[fixthecopier]

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.

[mabawser]

Our main brand is Ricoh but also do kyocera,konica minolta, alot of HP now and we've just taken on canon with xerox in the pipeline!!!!!

AS mentioned you can go out and spend a while looking and not having a clue but at the end of the day, a copier is a copier......famous last words ha!!!

[RRodgers]

All of them.

[blackcat4866]

Like fixthecopier, I have worked on just about everything.

Sure it can be scary, but I never walk in without a manual. And after 20 years, I haven't been totally stumped in a long time. Plus, I have the genius of all you guys & gals getting me through. A lot of it is attitude. Never give up (until it gets cost prohibitive).

I can hardly imagine what it was like at the beginning: walking in with no experience and no idea what to do, just the guts to walk in dumb and try something. I guess things haven't changed as much as I thought. =^..^=

[prntrfxr]

It is very scary. I can remember the first time I worked on a color machine. There were techs in same company who refused to learn them. Service manuals are invaluable, but I've worked for very cheap bosses in times past who refused to buy them. This forum is an invaluable resource. Just being able to bounce your ideas about a problem off another tech helps. I wish I had this forum when I was a green tech or at least knew about it when it first came out. I remember having to learn things the hard way and in some cases I found out later I was on the right track, but gave up too soon. If it had not been for a few experienced tech buddy's in the beginning who encouraged and supported me, I probably would be doing something else right now. If you don't at least try you'll never learn anything. Sometimes we would bring a machine back to the shop and put in a loaner machine. We would work on it when all the techs came back to office (5-6 techs) so everyone had input and we could all learn the machine. We would lose money on that call, but everyone was familiar with it and the problem got solved in the end. There were mistakes and I remember at least once, we ended up replacing the customers machine. Their machine became our test/part machine. I was a green tech then (did a lot more watching the others than accomplishing anything), but I learned more there than any other field position I had.

[cobiray]

Currently we sell Ricoh family and Samsung. Previously we have sold Minolta, KonicaMinolta, Royal Copystar, Canon, HP, Risograph and probably other ones I'm forgetting at the moment. We work on just about anything thrown at us (me) including duplicators, shredders, folders, off line collators, booklet makers, printers and those God awful $200 office store machines.

Once you get the process down it won't seem so bad working on machines you've never seen before. You'll get better at it the more you do it. If you're really a masochist you'll start looking at ones on the side that are old and you can't get parts for. As cheesy as it sounds, the best thing to go into an account like that is a good attitude. You can always let them know the score up front about parts availability, etc. to maybe ease their minds about the charges at the end. There is no point where you know it all, but I found that some time after 6-8 years of this line of work the pieces just kinda fell into place and I stopped having the anxiety of working on unfamiliar machines. Understanding the basic processes (charge, image writing, image development, transfer, fusing, cleaning) is the best place to start. I can't tell you how many times techs have called with an issue and I asked them if they've performed minimum call (cleaning, adjustments) and they haven't when that was all the machine needed.

Most times going in and talking to the key op who is frustrated is the best place to start. We don't just fix the machines, we fix the customers too. Keeping a cool head and being courteous to the customers really goes a long way most times.

[Morlock49]

Faxes, printers, wide format, copiers, most brands. also fix plotters, folders, central heating, electrics, plumbing

[mjarbar]

We only do Canon as our main line and Samsung as a back up, but we subcontract the odd Ricoh which I would like to take on myself

[Shadow1]

I'm Ricoh direct, but I'm expected to fix anything I run across.

[pacman]

We primarily do Samsung and Panasonic, but with the level of help I get on here and the time frame I get it in, I'm not afraid to at least take a look at something. I've learned a TON from this forum.

[jonhiker]

i work for ricoh and do mostly networking, but get my hands on all sizes.
manuals, a phone to call other techs, and some common sense make the job easier

[angelntx]

Canon, Ricoh, Konica Minolta and Kodak. Cpm 50 to 150.

[smiley]

previosly on my 1st employer we work on canon,toshiba,konicaminolt,ricoh,kyoceramita,sharp and riso duplicator but now i just work in canon.

[Joe Foe from Buffalo]

LOL I am a one man service department and expected to fix >any thing< that handles paper. Has been that way with me for 15+ years that before that I was just a copier tech for around 10 years. You name it I have/had/can fix it or I do not charge for my labor to try to fix it which is all most never and can count on one hand the ones I couldn't figure out. LOL Just wish my pay would reflect my talents.