90% of businesses are unaware of how much they are spending on print equipment and consumables. Some organisations on a managed print service contract might be able to quote you a cost per print maybe, but they will more than likely be unaware of how much they are losing through machine downtime.
This is a number that can be difficult to quantify – it is a ‘soft’ cost where working time is lost due to printer downtime, calling help desks, and dealing with repair call-outs.
So what is the true cost of printer unreliability? A faulty machine can take anything from 10 minutes to several days to fix. Imagine that taking place in a large, paper-reliant business, work comes to a standstill and costs can spiral as wages still have to be paid even when business operations cannot be performed. In an organisation like this, reliability is crucial.
However, there are things that can done when looking for a reliable print device:
- Buy a brand with a reputation for reliability. Here at Key Digital we offer Ricoh and UTAX, arguably some of the most reliable copier brands available today.
- A good warranty and service agreement is crucial, and can save you a lot of money in the long term.
- Plan with spare capacity – ensure that if a machine breaks or fails in some way, then there is a backup in place so that work can continue without disruption.
- Higher volume copiers are built for reliability, more so than cheaper devices. They also have lower print cost per page making the total cost of ownership less overall but with a higher initial cost.
Print device downtime can be hugely damaging to businesses of all sizes and types. However, downtime can’t be significantly reduced if a little research is done into copier suppliers and what they have to offer.