I haven't posted any tech rants in a while, but this is driving me nuts.
I support corporate level laser printers. Many of our customers purchase next day on-site contracts for their printers. For the most part the printers are very reliable - Very rarely are things actually broken on the printers (save for customer abuse).
One of the most common calls is paper jams from the lower trays, where the printer is refusing to pull paper. 95% of the time it's simply due to dirty rollers. Paper dust accumulates on the rollers, they start to slip, & you get strange noises + paper jam errors. At the 2-3 year point this is a pretty common problem.
When this is the case, it's very easy to solve. 5 minutes on the phone with somebody by the printer & we can have them up & running. Two rollers to wash with cold water & switch (to make sure they wear evenly), and a set of four to wipe off with a damp cloth. Put everything back together & it usually works perfectly for another 100K pages. I can walk even the most technically inept people through it, they don't have to know anything about the printer to fix it. "See that gray roller with the blue handle? Squeeze the handle & slide the roller to the left." It's that easy.
So what's the problem? People call up because they can't print.
Them: I can't print, it says (error message).
Me: Well, 95% of the time that's caused by dirty rollers, are you at the printer right now?
Them: No.
Me: Do you have anyone at the printer that we could talk to?
Them: No.
Me: Well, I'm almost certain I know exactly what the problem is, & if you have a number I can call you at, even a personal cell phone, we can probably get you back up and running in under 5 minutes.
Them: I can't do that. Why can't you just send someone out?
Me: We don't send techs out on user-replaceable parts, if cleaning the rollers doesn't fix it & there is no physical damage found I can send you rollers, but a tech visit is unnecessary for such a simple issue.
Them: We need this printer, can't you just send someone out?
Me (on mute): Arrggh...
If the printer is that important to you, spend the 5 minutes with me & we'll fix it! Even if it turns out to be something more severe I have to do SOME troubleshooting with you to know what parts to send with the tech. If I can't do a parts predict for it I'll be sending a tech with no parts, which will delay you even further since he'll have to come back another day with parts.
Your call, 5 minutes or 24+ hours. And if we send a tech out for something that turns out to be a user-replaceable part, we'll charge you for the visit. We don't have any contracts that don't require some form of troubleshooting.
Viper GTS
I support corporate level laser printers. Many of our customers purchase next day on-site contracts for their printers. For the most part the printers are very reliable - Very rarely are things actually broken on the printers (save for customer abuse).
One of the most common calls is paper jams from the lower trays, where the printer is refusing to pull paper. 95% of the time it's simply due to dirty rollers. Paper dust accumulates on the rollers, they start to slip, & you get strange noises + paper jam errors. At the 2-3 year point this is a pretty common problem.
When this is the case, it's very easy to solve. 5 minutes on the phone with somebody by the printer & we can have them up & running. Two rollers to wash with cold water & switch (to make sure they wear evenly), and a set of four to wipe off with a damp cloth. Put everything back together & it usually works perfectly for another 100K pages. I can walk even the most technically inept people through it, they don't have to know anything about the printer to fix it. "See that gray roller with the blue handle? Squeeze the handle & slide the roller to the left." It's that easy.
So what's the problem? People call up because they can't print.
Them: I can't print, it says (error message).
Me: Well, 95% of the time that's caused by dirty rollers, are you at the printer right now?
Them: No.
Me: Do you have anyone at the printer that we could talk to?
Them: No.
Me: Well, I'm almost certain I know exactly what the problem is, & if you have a number I can call you at, even a personal cell phone, we can probably get you back up and running in under 5 minutes.
Them: I can't do that. Why can't you just send someone out?
Me: We don't send techs out on user-replaceable parts, if cleaning the rollers doesn't fix it & there is no physical damage found I can send you rollers, but a tech visit is unnecessary for such a simple issue.
Them: We need this printer, can't you just send someone out?
Me (on mute): Arrggh...
If the printer is that important to you, spend the 5 minutes with me & we'll fix it! Even if it turns out to be something more severe I have to do SOME troubleshooting with you to know what parts to send with the tech. If I can't do a parts predict for it I'll be sending a tech with no parts, which will delay you even further since he'll have to come back another day with parts.
Your call, 5 minutes or 24+ hours. And if we send a tech out for something that turns out to be a user-replaceable part, we'll charge you for the visit. We don't have any contracts that don't require some form of troubleshooting.
Viper GTS
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