Why are Account Reviews of My MFP Important?

The saying “time is money” is the golden rule of every profitable business — the more time it takes to accomplish something, the more that process costs. So it is natural for most businesses to divest their schedules of any task, project, or meeting that isn’t mission critical.

And while, for many of these businesses, a MFP (multi-function printer) is necessary to the daily operations of their organization, as long as the MFP is functioning properly, there is no need to review its capabilities.

An account review, however, can shed light on the efficiency of not only your MFP itself, but the workflows it makes possible.

WHY ACCOUNT REVIEWS ARE IMPORTANT

Typically, after a MFP is installed, your sales representative will come on site to ensure the installation went smoothly, and to perform a brief review of your new machine’s capabilities — this often includes any specific features that were discussed during the sales process.

While this is a great introduction to your new machine, it often will only cover the basic functionality of the MFP — a new machine can be very different when compared to your previously-used MFP, so these initial demonstrations will not usually dive too deeply into the capabilities of your new device.

After the first month of familiarizing yourself with your new device, your representative should reach out to see how things are going — this is a great time to ask more in-depth questions about the capabilities of your machine.

Account reviews can be held on a quarterly or annual basis — quarterly reviews are usually virtual, and annual should always be held in-person. During this meeting, you can expect to review your usage numbers for the year, allowing you to see exactly how much your business is printing, copying, scanning, and faxing, as well as how much each costs.

During this time, your service provider may have the capability to make adjustments to allowances, if needed. If, for example, your scanning usage numbers are low, and your printing usage numbers are consistently over your monthly print allowance, you can adjust these allowances to reflect their actual usage. Conversely, if your scanning usage is extremely high, it may be worth exploring the option of purchasing a standalone scanner.

Another benefit of an account review is the fact that it saves your time — internal vendor account reviews are often a lengthy process — having to dig through past emails, invoices, and other documents to find usage numbers, and calculate expenses. This is all information your representative will be able to access easily and quickly. Simply put, your employees jobs are too important to spend gathering information that someone else can access more efficiently.

Account reviews are not limited to reviewing your usage, however — and can have implications far wider than the machine being analyzed.

LAY THE GROUNDWORK FOR INCREASED EFFICIENCY

An account review provides your business the opportunity to improve its operational efficiency through task and workflow automation. Workflow automation solutions are constantly changing, and integrations are becoming more and more plentiful.

During your account review, take the time to discuss the workflows surrounding your mission critical documents. Your representative may have an automation solution that can be customized to fit the needs of your business’ operations.

As your representative will work with many businesses — many of which experience the same problems as your office — they may have insight into a solution you were previously unaware of. While an account review may seem like an unnecessary use of your time, it can often lead to cost-saving solutions that more than make up for the few hours that they take out of your day. If you are concerned about your business losing money due to inefficient solutions, reach out to your representative to schedule an account review.