AOS Blog | Copier Industry Insights & Print Solutions

Is Your Print Provider Asking You the Right Questions?

Written by Brad McEldowney | August 16, 2018

 

 

Discussing our Managed Print Services with prospective clients often reminds us of one truth: very few organizations fully understand their own print environment. This commonly results in decreased productivity and wasted spend. As Managed Print Providers, we have a unique job when it comes to helping prospects understand how to optimize their print environment. It all comes down to whether or not your print provider is asking you the right questions to determine the best solutions for your unique needs. 

Understanding Your Print Environment

When stepping into a new organization or making a follow-up phone call, one of our first steps at American Office Solutions is to better understand our prospects’ print environment. This begins with knowing what devices they currently have within their office, as well as their location and the amount of usage they are getting on a monthly basis.

This information is important because it allows us as print providers to begin understanding the current print environment and begin thinking about how it could be improved. However, knowing the physical location, function and usage of devices is not where it ends. If your prospecting print provider is asking you the right questions, the dialogue will go far beyond the initial conversation.

Evaluating Your Print Usage

Understanding the print volume of each device is equally as important as knowing the basics about the device itself. When evaluating print environments and usage, our team uses the monitoring software Print Audit, which enables us to track device usage. The reports generated by this software allow us to see how many prints you are producing each month on your current devices and often allows us to recommend a more cost-effective solution.

These reports also give both us and the prospective client a better understanding of the peak months that a higher volume is performed on their devices, as well as the departments that may be contributing to a bulk of the printing volume. All of these pieces play an important role in understanding a current print environment in order to optimize it. 

Optimizing Your Print Devices 

As a local print provider, we pride ourselves in going far beyond the initial discussion or simply looking at the costs with your organization. Our goal is not only to understand what your organization does, but how you accomplish it, so we can partner with you to propose the best solutions. Our solutions help our clients improve their environment for their IT departments, streamline workflow, bring standardization of equipment and ensure the right number and size of equipment is present.

Our primary goal is always to create the best recommendation with your organization in mind. We know that the work our clients do is important and we want to be an extension of your team. At American Office Solutions, we love what we do because it gives us the opportunity to contribute to helping fulfill the mission and vision of inspiring, innovative and hardworking organizations.

If learning more about the functionality and cost-effectiveness of your current print environment interests you, our team would be happy to have a discussion. Start a conversation with us today and learn how our asking of the right questions sets us apart.