Copier Service (and Telephony and Document Management) in 2016 – Here's How We Did
By Dave Quint | Jul 27, 2017 2:30:59 PM | Insider, Document Management, Managed Print Services, Xerox, Office Equipment, Copiers, Telecommunications, Service & Repair
Last year, we shared an update of our service statistics from 2015. Before the year gets away from us – how did it get to be July already!?!?!? – I'd like to do the same for last year (it was another good year!).
We have 31 service technicians in the field:
26 supporting our copier and printer customers
3 supporting our new telephony services
2 focused on document management support
Each tech responded to an average of 512 service calls in an average response time of 3.6 hours. That's 15,872 service calls to help our customers with everything from fixing copier jams to troubleshooting document management systems to ensuring working phones.
Here's how that number breaks down:
Copier service calls - 15,021
Phone related service calls - 753
Other - 98
Including all services and our entire service area (covering three states) 83% of service calls were fixed on the first call.
Of the 17% that couldn't be handled in a single visit:
7% of service calls had a call back
10% had a hold for parts
If you compare to last year, some of these percentages are slightly higher – with reason though.
Our hold for parts were up 2.7% because we supported more products in 2016 than in 2015 – Savin and Xerox in particular. The new telephony lineup contributed as well. We didn't have a track record for parts usage for the Avaya systems and other phones we now sell and support. As we establish patterns of use and repair for both Xerox copiers and phones, we expect the hold for parts percentage to decrease again.
Callbacks increased from 5.5% in 2015 to 7% in 2016 for the same reason. As our techs become more proficient with the Xerox lines we now carry, callbacks will decrease.
Both of these facts directly contributed to our first call resolution dropping by 4% – from 87% to 83%.
And we had to train our service techs on these new product lines as well, which lead to a higher average response time combined with less support in our western region as we staffed that area up – Minnesota is a BIG state!
While average response time was higher, in much of our service area it was closer to the 2.4 hours in 2015. There were outliers that caused the average to increase – many of our customers didn't see a difference in response time.
All in all, our slight dip was the result of adding an entirely new business unit – telephony – and an extensive lineup of Xerox product.
While we train on all equipment we service on an ongoing basis, the most common training in 2016 involved the following products:
Xerox C60/C70
Xerox 7200 series
Canon Fiery training
Canon Prisma sync controller training
IR 6000/8000 series training
Canon C5000 series training
ImagePress 700/800 series training
ImagePress 10,000 training
As a company, we remain committed to training all of our service techs on an ongoing basis. That means better service for you!
Don't Want to See Your Service Tech? Do This
While we don't track exact numbers for the types of calls, we do know that we get two types of service calls more than others:
Copy quality
Mis-feeds
One of the simplest ways to ensure copy quality is to keep the copier clean. A few quick tips can prevent many mis-feeds:
Load the paper in the "up" direction (look for the arrow on the paper ream packaging)
Use the guides in the paper trays
Fan the paper edges to separate them before loading
Use fresh paper – open and unloaded reams of paper absorb moisture and jam more frequently
For more tips to avoid downtime and service calls, click the button below and download our free eBook – Inside the Mind of Your Copier – for a bunch of other simple steps to take to keep your copier functioning well. It's free!
Cedar Valley Business of the Year
I've written about this already – Customer Service and Community Involvement make Advanced Solutions Business of the Year – but I'd be remiss not to mention it again.
"The award honors an Alliance and Chamber investor for promoting the quality of life and offering leadership within the Cedar Valley, achieving a major business accomplishment, or making an outstanding contribution to the Cedar Valley community, economy, and citizens."
The Alliance & Chamber made videos with many of the recipients this year. Here's ours.
Dave Quint, president and CEO of Advanced Systems Inc. and past president of BTA Mid-America. Dave has worked with copiers, MFPs, scanners, and document workflow software since joining Advanced Systems as a sales associate in 1989. His favorite part of the job -- "there is no greater joy than to see the positive impact these solutions have in our client's businesses.'