Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

[BillyCarpenter]

I get a call yesterday from a contract customer for paper jams. The girl who called it in told me that had recently changed the brand paper they had been using and that's about the time the paper jams started. So, I show up this morning and I brought a ream of paper from our office to prove/disprove if the paper was indeed the problem.

As soon as I walk in the door, the manger calls me back to her office and starts reading me the riot act. She tells me that she wants me to replace the copier with another one because of all the jamming problems they've been having. This is all news to me because I'm the only one that works on the machine and they haven't been having jamming problems...beyond the occasional jam.


I finally get her calmed down enough to go work on the copier. I started making copies from tray 1 and it jammed every few pages. I replaced the paper with the fresh ream I brought along - not a single jam. I put their paper back in...jam, jam, jam.


I asked the manger to come to the copier to show her that it was a paper problem. Now she's really upset and tells me she doesn't think that's the problem. I stayed calm and asked her how she explained that the copier worked fine with my paper but jams constantly with her paper. Of course, she had no answer. She kept right on bitching.

Finally I told her that she was gonna have to order quality paper and that if another service call was placed for paper jams and they were still using the cheap paper that they would be charged for a service call. I knew that if I didn't tell her that that this was gonna be an ongoing issue.

[copier tech]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

I get a call yesterday from a contract customer for paper jams. The girl who called it in told me that had recently changed the brand paper they had been using and that's about the time the paper jams started. So, I show up this morning and I brought a ream of paper from our office to prove/disprove if the paper was indeed the problem.

As soon as I walk in the door, the manger calls me back to her office and starts reading me the riot act. She tells me that she wants me to replace the copier with another one because of all the jamming problems they've been having. This is all news to me because I'm the only one that works on the machine and they haven't been having jamming problems...beyond the occasional jam.


I finally get her calmed down enough to go work on the copier. I started making copies from tray 1 and it jammed every few pages. I replaced the paper with the fresh ream I brought along - not a single jam. I put their paper back in...jam, jam, jam.


I asked the manger to come to the copier to show her that it was a paper problem. Now she's really upset and tells me she doesn't think that's the problem. I stayed calm and asked her how she explained that the copier worked fine with my paper but jams constantly with her paper. Of course, she had no answer. She kept right on bitching.

Finally I told her that she was gonna have to order quality paper and that if another service call was placed for paper jams and they were still using the cheap paper that they would be charged for a service call. I knew that if I didn't tell her that that this was gonna be an ongoing issue.

Their paper must have be really bad quality to jam every time!

I have a client that uses the cheapest possible recycled paper, its not even white, more brown with bits in but even this feeds OK it does however need to feed rollers every 20/30k.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

Their paper must have be really bad quality to jam every time!

It wasn't jamming every single time. Sometimes it would feed 5 pages. Sometimes 10. Sometimes 2. When I put my paper in, I could feed 100+ pages with not a single jam.

[tsbservice]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

Most of our customers are using cheapest paper they can buy, still machines different(makes and models) I service will feed the paper. Of course there are aftermath and occasional paper jams but more like several jams on few hundred pages. I can imagine their paper was stored in very humid place or something like that before they put it into paper tray. I would ask them for another unopened ream of their paper and make sure that wrapper is in good condition then do some tests.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

Most of our customers are using cheapest paper they can buy, still machines different(makes and models) I service will feed the paper. Of course there are aftermath and occasional paper jams but more like several jams on few hundred pages. I can imagine their paper was stored in very humid place or something like that before they put it into paper tray. I would ask them for another unopened ream of their paper and make sure that wrapper is in good condition then do some tests.

The customer was using 20lb bond paper that was unopened with no signs of moisture.

All know is this: Their paper jammed consistently. My paper didn't jam AT ALL. They weren't having the problem before they switched to the new paper. I can only call it like I see it.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

You took the right line. I had a high volume custumer make the same claim. On three separate occassions I bought 2 reams of paper on the way over, and ran out 1000 sheets of my paper without a jam.

It turned out that the enduser had a pallate of paper stored in an unheated warehouse (22F, 55% humidity). She carried in 6 to 10 cases every Monday morning. It jammed until about Wednesday when the paper had acclimated, then fed fine.

I never did convince her that it was the way she was storing the paper. =^..^=

[copiertec]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

Ahh, the old "magic paper" trick. I know this is a situation that techs must have run into a ton of times. I had a client that had an Alphard 2 series machine right next to a Sharp MX-m620. They were using members mark paper and the Kyocera would pull double sheets when feeding this garbage paper. I brought in some Hammermill 20lbs paper it ran completely fine. I told them to stop buying that cheap garbage, low and behold they did. In the end, they replaced the Sharp with another Kyocera and they buy good paper.
But, I have run into this scenario what seems like a million times and some clients think I am blowing smoke up their ass. Like you, I always approach the situation respectfully and listen to the client and make sure I am fully addressing their frustrations. I also let the client know, that if it was a mechanical issue, I would have already fixed it because it is a lot less work involved to replace any mechanical issue then to try to explain and convince you that it's your paper and "no my paper does not have magical qualities. It's just quality paper!"

[slimslob]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

Their paper must have be really bad quality to jam every time!

I have a client that uses the cheapest possible recycled paper, its not even white, more brown with bits in but even this feeds OK it does however need to feed rollers every 20/30k.

Cheapest price does not always mean cheapest quality. The paper Billy describes sounds like one Ricoh-USA instructors used warn about in their classroom instruction. It was labeled Great White Shark. It worked fine in lower volume machines, less than 35 ppm. And would jam constantly on anything faster than 50 ppm.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

I try to never blame it on the paper unless I'm sure that's the problem. With the customer already being pissed off before I walked in the door, I knew I had to make sure the problem was the paper before I let her know. I switched the paper back and forth between their paper and mine about 6 times.

Same results every time. Their paper jammed...mine never jammed.

The manager has sent me about 4 emails since I got back to the office. She told me her job is to save her company money. I told her that I understood but that in this case it was gonna cost her money in the long run as I can't make the copier feed cheap paper. I think she finally got the message.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

Did you first inspect, clean or replace the paper feed rollers before assuming the paper was the issue?

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

Did you first inspect, clean or replace the paper feed rollers before assuming the paper was the issue?

I replaced the feed tires about a month ago. They have 10k on them.

I have seen cases where brand new feed tires will get cheap paper to work...for a little while. But it's only masking the problem and you're asking for a call back.

[KenB]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

1696345[/URL]]I replaced the feed tires about a month ago. They have 10k on them.

I have seen cases where brand new feed tires will get cheap paper to work...for a little while. But it's only masking the problem and you're asking for a call back.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

This makes me think of a funeral home that copied messages into pre-printed cards. The cards themselves were quite expensive ... imported from Italy IIRC.

They were not, however, anybody's idea of a standard size (back when there was no such thing as Custom Paper Size), and liberally sprinkled with some glittery stuff that turned out to be conductive, and shorted out the transfer/separation charge unit(s) on the Mita DC152.
=^..^=

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

This makes me think of a funeral home that copied messages into pre-printed cards. The cards themselves were quite expensive ... imported from Italy IIRC.

They were not, however, anybody's idea of a standard size (back when there was no such thing as Custom Paper Size), and liberally sprinkled with some glittery stuff that turned out to be conductive, and shorted out the transfer/separation charge unit(s) on the Mita DC152.
=^..^=

Speaking of funeral homes. I went on a service call to one and paper was jammed in the fuser. I pulled it out and it was a death certificate printed on some funky paper. The guy in the funeral home asked me what was wrong with the copier.


I told him that the death certificates were killing the copier. Get it? lol. True story. lol

[slimslob]

Re: Customers - Walking into a hornet's nest

I have had a few instances of repeated jams caused either directly by the paper or operator error involving the paper at one hospital.

The first one on an Aficio 1027 and was caused by the operator somehow managing to bend the corner of the bottom 10 sheets over when loading. It happened to be the corner where the sensor was that determined when the paper needed to be lifted. When the paper tray was first closed the paper was lifted enough to come in contact with the feed roller. After about 5 or 6 sheets it no longer was so no paper would feed.

The next was again a 1027. Every morning we would get a call that the machine in the surgery center was jamming constantly. It took about an hour to load up and get there. By then the machine was working fine. One morning my boss told me to be there at 8 the next morning. The machine had just jammed when I got there. I pulled paper tray 1 out and immediately noticed that someone had wedged additional paper between the tail fence and the far end of the tray. This pushed the top of the tail fence hard against the paper which pushed the top of the paper stack hard against the feed end of the tray preventing it from rising as the paper fed out. Took the extra stack of paper out, fed fine. Put it back in, jammed after about 3 or 4 sheets. Showed everyone there. The head nurse was already in a surgical theater but they said they would let her know. As I was leaving my boss showed up and I showed him. He then showed the head purchasing agent who was in charge of calling in the work requests.

The third was a color machine in administration. It was jamming every ten sheets from tray 1. When I opened the tray I noticed a slight hump a little over an inch back from the ledge of the paper in the tray. it had to have happened at the paper mill before the final cut to size as with the fold the sheets were 8.5X11, straighten the fold out and they were 8.5X12.