The End of Xerox's ASP program

[azehnali]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

thats probably because the others would do it if Xerox didnt
in los angeles canon is at 2.5 cents on color service and machine prices at what xerox refurb units sell for
only explanation is WTF

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

thats probably because the others would do it if Xerox didnt
in los angeles canon is at 2.5 cents on color service and machine prices at what xerox refurb units sell for
only explanation is WTF

Color at $0.0250! Ouch!!! That is my breakeven cost!!! You just have to walk away from business that is silly putty.

[Murv]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

the issue is really not xerox
Canon Ricoh and Konica have driven the service and machine prices down so much the only way to compete is to cut corners hence all this

Another part of it is that Xerox is shifting their service to a different model. For ASP's It was originally based on the Tektronix printer service model. Somewhat different beast.

[rockdude]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

It looks like cutoff date (to be able to order warranty parts or file a labor claim) is June 1, 2021

Mark it on your calendar. R.I.P. Xerox ASP Program

[Murv]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

It looks like cutoff date (to be able to order warranty parts or file a labor claim) is June 1, 2021

Mark it on your calendar. R.I.P. Xerox ASP Program

Yeah, they keep kicking the ball down the road. We were scrambling recently because it had been May 1. Came down from on high that the warranty part magic number after that is $300. Anything less and you have to buy it. 300 or over and Xerox will send it out. They sure aren't making it easy.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

Yeah, they keep kicking the ball down the road. We were scrambling recently because it had been May 1. Came down from on high that the warranty part magic number after that is $300. Anything less and you have to buy it. 300 or over and Xerox will send it out. They sure aren't making it easy.

So are you saying that a customer who leased a new Xerox MFP like an A3 C7030 30 cpm color, has to buy any part like a feed roller tire and then wait for a Barrister's tech to install it?

[XeroxTechBrazil]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

Xerox has had this weird relationship problem since they first started dabbling in contract service.

They started out NOT selling machines, lease only (well, you could buy one but prices were outrageous, $35,000 for a 914 in 1969 dollars).

They absolutely refused to deal with any independent service, refusing to sell any parts until they got sued and lost; proactively threatening customers that if they did try in house or independent service, the machine would have to be completely refurbished ,, before it could go back on Xerox service.

There was an endless string of "associate cooperation programs" after that, for refurbishing product mostly, that went back on Xerox service. But, invariably Xerox would abruptly pull the plug. The programs worked, but Xerox still ended them.

When independents developed a significant service presence (9000 first, then DocuTech) and Xerox was having a hard time keeping their techs working, they went and bought independent DocuTech/5090 service companies. I had a friend cash out handsomely. Another friend made over $100K / year servicing 3100's during their short life. Xerox was paying $35K to senior techs at the time.

Xerox has never had focus, placing and losing money in a variety of ventures. Licenses,, and the outrageous cost of diagnostic license extensions, drove many to find an alternative. Now you can get a diagnostic license extension for B&W for $250, and $500 non expiring licenses for color boxes that don't need diagnostic licenses.

In the meantime, they made some changes with their service techs that were demoralizing, and that discouraged anyone from going the extra mile. Diversity reared it's ugly head. Back in the day, the Tech Rep as we were called, "owned" his machines, took pride in their performance and in the customer's satisfaction.

The final nail (at least as I see it) was Xerox' disastrous roll out of the Nuvera. The Nuvera is NOW a pretty nice machine, but the first ones replaced DocuTechs that were running a half million copies between calls. Nuveras were getting numbers like 50K, with a photoreceptor that had to be replaced at 250K. The smaller, quieter footprint with higher resolution was there, but you couldn't keep it running.

The Nuvera was an enormous lost opportunity: People were begging for their DocuTechs back.

[Murv]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

So are you saying that a customer who leased a new Xerox MFP like an A3 C7030 30 cpm color, has to buy any part like a feed roller tire and then wait for a Barrister's tech to install it?

Not quite. What I am saying is that a company, as an ASP, sells XYZ Xerox machine within their 50 mile radius and while it is under warranty Xerox will still provide parts *IF* said part is over 300. If not, the ASP has to buy the part, even though the unit is under warranty. No labor reimbursement, AND since *they sold it* and they *are an ASP* and it is within their *territory* they are obligated to service it during the warranty period. The XPPS contracts are a different story entirely and that's where outfits like Barrister and Compucom come in. Remember - Barrister doesn't actually have any techs. They have a network of wannabes, some retired/unemployed techs, and ASP's that they contact and try to bully into taking calls for next to nothing.

I honestly don't know if Barrister is handling any A3 for Xerox at this juncture. But, given that Xerox Corp will roll in to a large/natiowide outfit and XPPS *everything on site(s)* Barrister definitely handles a lot of Lemxark A4 and other A4 for them. I've only had one occasion where Barrister has contacted me to handle an A3 call for them and they wanted to pay us 25 bucks to drive 45 miles each way to sort out a non-descript ADF issue on a WorkCenter 78xx. We declined.

Addendum: The customer - under warranty or XPPS - doesn't see a repair bill. The ASP, however, does. The ASP gets stuck with the cost of a set of rollers or whatever as well as the cost of sending a tech on site to effect the repair. The ASP basically has to make it up on the back end via CPP/Toner-Supply Sales.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

Not quite. What I am saying is that a company, as an ASP, sells XYZ Xerox machine within their 50 mile radius and while it is under warranty Xerox will still provide parts *IF* said part is over 300. If not, the ASP has to buy the part, even though the unit is under warranty. No labor reimbursement, AND since *they sold it* and they *are an ASP* and it is within their *territory* they are obligated to service it during the warranty period. The XPPS contracts are a different story entirely and that's where outfits like Barrister and Compucom come in. Remember - Barrister doesn't actually have any techs. They have a network of wannabes, some retired/unemployed techs, and ASP's that they contact and try to bully into taking calls for next to nothing.

I honestly don't know if Barrister is handling any A3 for Xerox at this juncture. But, given that Xerox Corp will roll in to a large/natiowide outfit and XPPS *everything on site(s)* Barrister definitely handles a lot of Lemxark A4 and other A4 for them. I've only had one occasion where Barrister has contacted me to handle an A3 call for them and they wanted to pay us 25 bucks to drive 45 miles each way to sort out a non-descript ADF issue on a WorkCenter 78xx. We declined.

Addendum: The customer - under warranty or XPPS - doesn't see a repair bill. The ASP, however, does. The ASP gets stuck with the cost of a set of rollers or whatever as well as the cost of sending a tech on site to effect the repair. The ASP basically has to make it up on the back end via CPP/Toner-Supply Sales.

.... so if you lease a new Xerox C7030 A3 copier from Xerox Direct with a cpc service contract, it is likely for the customer that they will see no change in service. A Xerox tech will arrive onsite and service the copier parts and labour included.

If you acquire a Xerox A4 product from "Distribution", a Barristers tech is likely to show up to repair the MFP under any warranty claim?

I am mostly interested in what happens to A3 product.

[Murv]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

.... so if you lease a new Xerox C7030 A3 copier from Xerox Direct with a cpc service contract, it is likely for the customer that they will see no change in service. A Xerox tech will arrive onsite and service the copier parts and labour included.

If you acquire a Xerox A4 product from "Distribution", a Barristers tech is likely to show up to repair the MFP under any warranty claim?

I am mostly interested in what happens to A3 product.

If you are in the business of selling Xerox contracts then you keep on keeping on. If you are in the business of actually servicing Xerox products this changeover affects you. Whether or not the tech who shows up on site is an actual Xerox employee will hinge on where you are and who is available.

[Jettdog]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

How's this working out for everybody?

[Murv]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

How's this working out for everybody?

Fine - just as long as you don't have too many XPPS contracts and you unload anything remotely connected to eConcierge.

[rockdude]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

How's this working out for everybody?

We basically gave up on New Xerox business. The ones that we have left have been converted to the XPPS accounts and we are just letting Xerox handle all service.

In doing what they did, Xerox basically fired all it's Asp's and their service techs.

[Murv]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

We basically gave up on New Xerox business. The ones that we have left have been converted to the XPPS accounts and we are just letting Xerox handle all service.

In doing what they did, Xerox basically fired all it's Asp's and their service techs.

The only XPPS contracts we have are on the remote locations of our big accounts, but to be honest, we are looking at converting them to standard MPS and finding other service centers to hire out as needed since Mother X seems to be dropping the ball constantly on getting these folks back up and running. As to all of our local, we handle it under our own MPS contracts and we are doing fine. Going forward I guess we will see how things go - a couple of months back we were bought by another company (We've been a smaller mom & pop forever.) New outfit is a Xerox ASP as well, but they have a much lower census on X products than we do because they are also a BIG HP shop. They have other locations nationwide - and embedded techs on big accounts - so we are their new toy (first corporate acquisition in their history, as well.) Our shop seems to have a LOT more Xerox experience/know-how than their other locations/techs (that's an educated hypothesis based on actual conversations with their national service manager and the fact that he has all but outright said so.)

As of right now we (and they) are Office through Light Production shops. It was announced at the monthly company meeting Friday that they are giving serious consideration to diving into production since they are already supporting some through some manner of contract deal with Mother X that involves them having Xerox W-2'd techs doing the repairs. I'm not privy to the details on how they worked that one out. Either way, I'm relatively certain that if they jump feet first into the production end at least one other tech and I will be heading off to "skool" since we have been getting an escalating number of calls from outfits looking for someone to support their production equipment. My bet on that is that the Big X is dropping the ball on them as well.

I guess we will see what happens.

[rockdude]

Re: The End of Xerox's ASP program

The only XPPS contracts we have are on the remote locations of our big accounts, but to be honest, we are looking at converting them to standard MPS and finding other service centers to hire out as needed since Mother X seems to be dropping the ball constantly on getting these folks back up and running. As to all of our local, we handle it under our own MPS contracts and we are doing fine. Going forward I guess we will see how things go - a couple of months back we were bought by another company (We've been a smaller mom & pop forever.) New outfit is a Xerox ASP as well, but they have a much lower census on X products than we do because they are also a BIG HP shop. They have other locations nationwide - and embedded techs on big accounts - so we are their new toy (first corporate acquisition in their history, as well.) Our shop seems to have a LOT more Xerox experience/know-how than their other locations/techs (that's an educated hypothesis based on actual conversations with their national service manager and the fact that he has all but outright said so.)

As of right now we (and they) are Office through Light Production shops. It was announced at the monthly company meeting Friday that they are giving serious consideration to diving into production since they are already supporting some through some manner of contract deal with Mother X that involves them having Xerox W-2'd techs doing the repairs. I'm not privy to the details on how they worked that one out. Either way, I'm relatively certain that if they jump feet first into the production end at least one other tech and I will be heading off to "skool" since we have been getting an escalating number of calls from outfits looking for someone to support their production equipment. My bet on that is that the Big X is dropping the ball on them as well.

I guess we will see what happens.

I also have been getting reports on Xerox dropping the ball on service on "ALL" of their machines, not just the low end ones.

We have been getting calls from Barrister asking us to go out and repair their (xerox's) lower end machines for $35.00 a call...lol
(We keep politely declining)

What is really funny is Barrister asked us why we keep declining?

When we tell them that the $35.00 rate is ridiculous, with gas at $4.00 a gallon. They replied we should take public transportation to save money!!