The following was written by Eric Shackleton, Sales Director at RDT Office Solutions Group

Please allow me to take you back in time …………………
For those of you in my age bracket I am sure you will remember “CopyPlan”.
It was a concept used during the eighties to acquire photocopiers, it was a bit like buying a timeshare……………whereby it seemed like it may have initially been a reasonably good idea, at the time, but inevitably it ended in tears.

Please allow me to apologise now if you still own that timeshare!

Through hard sales tactics, both the timeshare and the CopyPlan resulted in massive overcharging, eventually causing CopyPlan to become outlawed in the industry. The reasons why were simple, just like timeshare it was very confusing and very misleading for buyers, what CopyPlan did was effectively tie the customer to a high copy charge that bundled in the price of the photocopier, the service element and on some occasion’s paper as well.

It left many customers overpaying by thousands of pounds per year for their copiers and gave them very little protection against bad service or in some cases no service at all. Does this all sound familiar?

Most photocopiers under a CopyPlan style contract were poorly maintained as the copier company had no incentive to provide good customer support and customers ended up paying for thousands of unused copies each quarter.
However, CopyPlan was also hugely popular with the copier salesman as they earned huge commissions every month, not only on the sale of the copier but mainly on the future usage of the machine.

With many businesses, schools and even charities, CopyPlan brought out horror stories that resulted in some cases six figure bills for a single copier contract.

CopyPlan was recently resurrected under some new names you may know like “Print Plan” or “Total Volume Plan”. Some photocopier companies are now offering “free” print audits to allow the Salesman to get a foot back in the door, be wary of some of these print audit tools as some may not be entirely accurate leading to exaggerated print volumes and in turn higher contract costs for the end user.

While some photocopiers can save money on printing costs, quite often the print audit is used to deliver a so called “service package” that once again fails to protect the customer and usually results in high hidden charges per print and ultimately a contract that has companies/customers tied to a minimum volume linked to a fixed quarterly charge which, just like the CopyPlan of old, this lead to overcharging the customer for volumes they may never use.

This tactic commits the customer to a far higher charge than they would otherwise have paid to purchase the copier. Although these deals can be appropriate in the short term, the customer needed to be aware of the overall commitment of this type of scheme and that these “offers/deals” were normally only suitable for a year at most.

What customers should have done is insist the price of the photocopier and the service charges were shown separately in any agreement. And never agree to a high minimum charge as it is not necessary and offered no financial benefit.

Time for your first question …….. “what’s the solution to this?”

Well I am pleased to say it’s quite simple!

As most companies now want to operate in a “do it faster, do it for less, do it better” environment, here at RDT Office Solutions Group (RDT) we are a Premier Partner for Xerox we will not sell you another photocopier on hidden high copy charges or indeed ask you to commit to a minimum volume. Our main objective is to provide a solution which is not only cost effective, but is totally transparent and can be flexible for the end user – that’s you by the way!

Don’t get me wrong I appreciate lowering costs is important, it is for everyone, but saving money for its own sake is not the ultimate goal we are trying to achieve. Being able to work with the correct supplier like RDT, who can provide the right solution and the correct contract type, complimented with excellent service cover, coupled by software that will boost efficiency by enhancing workflows and simplifying manual processes.

Your second question is …….”How do we do that?” By utilising a structured method of the Xerox Managed Print Service (XMPS) you can have all your fleet of devices centrally managed, (even non – Xerox ones) to cover every aspect of what was normally seen as a complicated area for most buyers. This XMPS can provide significant savings by stripping out unnecessary expenditure that is associated to print costs such as multi-vendor consumables, maintenance bills, call-out charges, servicing costs and even the energy saving aspect of it.

Take a closer look at your current situation and you will need to include all of the above if want to continue making copies/prints efficiently on a daily basis.

Your printing devices are already networked, so why not take advantage of today’s technology and bring the next level of efficiency, cost savings, and management to your company’s print environment?

RDT currently look after 1,000’s of customers throughout the UK and across Europe, we are certain that if we have the opportunity to meet with the person responsible for print we will be able to show how we can give you the chance of saving a minimum of 30% on your current costs.

Your final question should now be…”How do I make this happen for my company?”

You can contact me directly on email eric.shackleton@rdt-osg.com or give me a call on 07950 – 919770 we can carry out a free assessment and design a bespoke solution that fits your needs, email me and see how RDT can help your company.

Check out RDT on this link: www.rdt-osg.com