Gold plated technical service
Among the farm of printers in our office we have one that stands above all the rest. The expensive one. The printer that adds colour to our lives. The Xerox machine with the crayons for fodder. A prince among the common mono lasers. So, when things aren’t “as they should be”, people notice. And in the technicians’ world, getting noticed by others is a guarantee of intense attention.
Recently the printer that is so expensive we run audits on its use has had a display issue. The LCD screen seemed darker to me, but I blamed it on a combination of my eyesight and the overhead lights. When others concurred, we had a pattern emerging. So, off to the technical support section of the website, where I found that the “display problem” was important enough to rate an online video on how to change out the electronics. This is rare: in fact, this could be added to a wiki as an example of the word “rare”. Time to investigate.
A serial number check (which can be handled by either looking at the front of the printer OR interrogating its built-in webserver) gave the data necessary to run a warranty check. Think of a cop show where they run the license plates. Similar. We’re gold – for years to come, since we paid for extended insurance. I called the requisite 800 number and within minutes a professional had agreed to send me out a replacement display unit. Remember the online video? He also offered telephone support when the box arrived within one or two business days. And said thank you, three times. This is gold plated technical service.
While busily playing printer tech, I decided to install a firmware upgrade. The unit printed a large poster to attach to the printer reminding people not to unplug it during the three crucial minutes of brain surgery, and also printed a post-op report. All this using a modern process that involved the webserver and a PostScript file (I have a long-term relationship with PS, which is about as good as the printing world gets). All done before time came to go home.
(PS Less than twenty hours later, the part was delivered and installed)
On other fronts, I don’t have sufficient photos in my library to continue a year-about comparison, but here’s a couple of pictures from late this afternoon to applaud the way our snow cover is disappearing. If I can melt the ice in the “pond” I can declare spring as arrived…
