If you’re running a business, chances are you’re trying to move away from using physical paper and onto digital documentation. But as your own bulging filing cabinet might prove, that’s much easier said than done, and it’s why you still likely have a printer or copier (or a whole fleet of them if your business depends on it). And copier maintenance itself? If it’s not a complete afterthought, it’s likely so far down on your priority list that you probably only occasionally glance at how much your printing is costing your company. But maintaining copiers properly can have an alarming positive effect on the productivity and profit of your company.

How Copier Maintenance Is Draining Your Budget

In truth, a bulk of what makes copier maintenance so difficult is the sheer variety of printers and copiers that are used by businesses worldwide. Having many different companies developing their own printing and copying solutions means that competition in the industry is fierce.

This has both positive and negative effects on the end consumer – you. While you get to enjoy increasingly efficient technology, it can be gated behind the manufacturer’s software and compatibility demands. As a result, each device will behave differently, putting more strain on understanding its maintenance needs. This can lead to trouble for your bottom line in a few different ways.

Unexpected and Long Downtimes

Your copier is no doubt vital for your business pipeline and workflow processes, therefore you should make sure it’s running smoothly at least 99.9% of the time. When it breaks down and you suddenly can’t get any documentation out of (or into) your filing systems, your employees might have a lot of wasted manhours on their hands. And if you resort to using a local print shop to fix this issue, you might just be adding onto the cost and using suboptimal printing setups in a pinch.

Frequent Fixes Part Replacements

If your copier has experienced several notable errors, crashes, or just unexpected breakdowns over the past year, you may have racked up more in repairs than the copier was initially worth. Add to that the aforementioned lost time, and you’ve got a printer that’s costing you more money than its value.

This is especially true if you forgo any long-term service plans from the manufacturer or distributor. And chances are, you couldn’t have been bothered to, as it was just another starting cost that you wanted to avoid. But without that service plan, one-off fixes (which won’t be as one-off as the copier gets older) will cost much more than they would with the plan in place.

Consumables

In some cases, it’s not the copier maintenance or the device itself that’s costing you money, but what you put in it. Or rather, it’s the lack of forethought put into how employees use it that’s the real problem. Printer ink or toner are perhaps the most expensive parts of owning a copier (ranking it in the 10 most expensive liquids in the world), and wasting that toner can wreck your budget.

Toner, or in some cases paper, waste usually comes from a lack of mindfulness when printing. You might be printing one-sided when the device and the document you’re printing can do just fine with double-sided printing. Meanwhile, printing documents in full color that might not need to be can lead to wasting colored toner. Even using the wrong kind of paper can be costly. It can jam the copier or lead to printing errors that need to be redone, wasting more paper and ink in the process.

Neglecting Regular Copier Maintenance

It’s not enough for you to know how to use the copier and maintain it well. The employees are the ones who will be working on the device far more often, and their lack of training (or plain negligence) can cause the copier to crash more often, get jammed, or keep running out of supplies when you need them most.

In the worst cases, if employees don’t know how to solve a particular problem with the device, and you don’t have support on call, tinkering without even the most basic repair knowledge can lead to even more issues down the line.

Plain Old Age

Copiers generally aren’t meant to last forever, and this is doubly true with more modern, internet-dependent devices. From driver support to software and firmware failures, an old printer might even stop being able to connect to modern PCs entirely. This is further complicated by the increasing need to use internet access for basic copier functionalities, which older devices might not be capable of accomplishing.

Additionally, older printers are just far less efficient. Considering the aforementioned competitiveness in the industry, printers have been getting better at a faster rate than ever before. This might not only be reflected in the device’s speed, but also in its simplicity, compatibility with other office supplies, and supplemental add-ons and finishers. With an old model, you might be wasting time (and money) trying to do something banal that newer devices perform automatically.

How to Streamline Copier Maintenance With Managed Services

Managed services can solve all the problems you have with your copier, even the ones you didn’t know you had. While it might sound odd to outsource maintaining a copier, there are several benefits to doing so.

More Predictable Costs

In general, a managed print provider can supply you with copiers or any other kind of office devices on a lease or rent basis. While the monthly cost of a single device might seem high compared to buying it outright, it typically includes maintenance and repair costs that can, as mentioned earlier, add up quickly.

Using a professional service to handle your copier supply and maintenance means you can expect a standard bill each month, allowing you to prepare your finances more easily.

Preventative and Reactive Maintenance

Apart from fixing the copier when it gets broken, a managed service provider will also typically include the option to perform periodic checkups on every device you’ve leased or even bought from them. This can include cleaning, firmware updates, checking for driver mismatches, or even more esoteric problems such as incorrect settings and inefficiencies in the printer setup.

All of these can help you minimize how often the copier stops working when you need it, saving you time and money that would be spent on emergency services.

Support and Training

Having an expert on call when your devices break can make all the difference when you’re having a long day at the office. With a managed service provider, you get an entire team of experts only a message, email, or phone call away.

Furthermore, you might also be able to receive or schedule proper training for the device, getting all relevant employees up to speed with the copier’s capabilities and how to best use them. This can minimize errors that come from mishandling.

Device Upgrades

What happens to your old copier when it doesn’t work anymore? You most likely try to recycle it, or just toss it out and write it off entirely.

With a managed service provider, you can minimize that waste. With long-term leasing or renting programs, you might not only be getting a device, but a subscription to use any device you might need. As such, if your documentation needs change, or the copier you currently have no longer performs as well as it should, the service provider can issue you a new one. This might even be completely “free,” as in it won’t affect your monthly costs.

How to Get the Best Support for Your Copier

Now that you know why your copier maintenance might be costing you more than you’re prepared to pay, it’s time to get in touch with service providers and discover how exactly they can help. But that doesn’t mean you can just sign a contract with the first one you find online.

You need a service provider that has access to some of the best devices on the market, knows how to use them, and, most importantly, can correctly ascertain what exactly you need from your copier. Those take experience in the industry and a long history of positive customer relationships. Copiers Etcetera has just that, with over three decades of professional imaging solutions that go beyond just installing a copier and leaving.

To learn how to transform your Mill Creek business through modern office equipment, contact Copiers Etcetera today.