December 3, 2018
In most business environments, switching print providers isn’t thought of as a fun project. Just the idea of making the switch can be enough to cause a headache to start forming. Do you really want to put yourself through the stress? What if you go through the whole process only to end up with the same problems with a different provider? Questions like these can creep up and become a distraction for the real issue at hand. Let’s take a look at the costs associated with switching print service providers.
What Does Switching Print Providers Cost?
When you think about making the switch, there are a few immediate issues that come up, like needing to retrain your help desk and re-label all the printers. Plus, there’s the issue of the unknown. Who is this new provider? Are they better than my current one, or is it going to be more of the same? Before convincing yourself to stick it out with your current provider, consider what could be gained by making the switch.
All Printing Service Providers Are Not the Same
For starters, let’s cover why you’re looking to switch in the first place. If your current print provider is not meeting your needs, the most cost-prohibitive choice might be choosing to stay with them. I recommend making a list of all the ways they’re falling short of your expectations. Do any of these sound familiar?
- Supplies or maintenance techs keep getting sent to the wrong location.
- Repeat network issues keep popping up.
- Their help desk isn’t helpful.
- They don’t service all the makes and models in your print environment.
- They don’t offer automatic toner replacement.
- They’re not keeping your print device roster up-to-date in their system.
- Their data collection and reporting isn’t helpful.
- They don’t offer secure printing services.
Any or all of the issues above are reason enough to want to switch to a different managed print services company.
Choosing Marco for Print
In our experience, customers who switch to Marco for print services are displacing a vendor who had limited resources. Small or medium-sized providers might have 5-50 employees total, while Marco has over 700 service technicians and engineers. As a larger company, we have deeper areas of specialization, data collection teams and custom invoicing teams, to name a few. We have multiple teams set up to support end users and the overall customer experience.
Yet, the way our print services are structured, we’re still able to provide a small-company experience to our customers. The difference is, each customer’s team has a wealth of resources to draw from to consistently improve how the service is delivered.
Switching Print Service Providers Made Easy
First, know that you can tell a lot about a print provider by how they handle the switch. Here at Marco, we have it down to a science. We start by sending out a project coordination team on-site to re-inventory, re-label and conduct a welcome call. The welcome call is where the entire team gets on a call (video or other) as your new project manager talks you through what the process moving forward looks like. From that point, you will have the steps laid out and the timeline set. And remember that bulleted list from before? With Marco’s managed print services, all of those issues are covered, and that’s just the beginning.
