10 Questions to Pick the Right School Print Supplier

When it comes to procuring a new print supplier for your school, it can be difficult to tell suppliers apart when glossy brochures and technical spec sheets are flying your way.

While the print technology is important, we believe it’s just as important that your supplier is there to support you should you need to call upon them. When it comes to service and support levels, you quickly find that not all suppliers are equal!
To help you navigate changing print supplier, we’ve compiled the 10 essential questions you should ask of any potential new supplier to understand just how they will support you in any on-going contract.
to ask a variety of questions regarding customer service and support to ensure a smooth and efficient working relationship. Here are some key questions to ask:

1. What are your customer service hours, and how can we contact you (phone, email, chat)?

This might sound too simple to ask, but it’s important to understand what type of on-going relationship you are going to have with this supplier. In many companies there can be a big disconnect from the friendly, personal sales team to the understaffed / anonymous support team. Being able to pick up the phone and speak to another human is sadly not always a standard service these days.

2. Will I receive a dedicated account manager or point of contact for our school?

Will you be speaking to a person or logging a fault report into an anonymous ticketing system / email address? If your printer goes down, the school day can’t stop and understanding how you access the support team is an important consideration.

3. How do you handle issues and what is the typical resolution time?

Don’t be shy here - ask for specifics! Many companies will aim to fix your issues within 48 hours, but what percentage of schools actually receive this service? If your main school printer goes down can you afford to wait more than 48 hours for a fix?

4. Can you provide references from other educational institutions you've worked with?

Nowadays every supplier can provide you with school references so it’s important to look at how many references they can provide to you, and how impartial they are. It’s easy to find 3 schools who are willing to act as a case study, but can the supplier provide 10, 20 or even 50? A second question to ask is were their case studies incentivised through discounts or extra support? Impartiality is important.

5. How many schools does each of your engineers cover / how many engineers-to-schools do you have?

This will give you an insight into how quickly the supplier can resolve issues and how personal a service you’re likely to receive. It’s not uncommon for a single engineer to cover upwards of 200 schools. School workload is seasonal, and every school will ramp up printing around the same time, meaning that printers break down pretty much around the same time in most schools. This can mean you’re in a queue for an engineer visit which adds more downtime to your school printing.

6. What happens if I want to change my print solution before my contract is up for renewal?

From year-to-year, and even term-to-term, circumstances in school can change so it’s important to know what type of flexibility you have with any given supplier. Print contracts are typically multi-year agreements, tying you in for a minimum of 3 years. If you need to make a change to the type / number of printers you have, will you need to pay any extra fees? Will you need to reset the contract and enter into a new multi-year term? 

7. What are the break-clause terms of the contract if I’m dissatisfied with the level of service?

It’s important to understand your options up front and your recourse should you not be happy with a provider. If the supplier is fully confident in their solution and stresses how good it is, they should have no problem ensuring that you have a break-clause in your contract should the reality not live up to your expectations. It is very rare for a supplier to have a break-clause in their standard contract and sadly schools all too often find out about this the hard way.

8. How do you handle billing inquiries, and is there a dedicated support team for financial questions?

Another question that might seem too simple to ask, but from our experience, many schools find that they’re quickly paying more than what they were initially quoted for because their print usage is beyond what was agreed. Ever varying print costs makes budgeting all the more difficult and any reputable supplier should be supporting you to get your costs under control. 

9. Do you provide any usage reports or data to help us track our print expenses and make informed decisions?

Going hand in hand with the previous question, the key here is whether any usage reports are proactive, sent to you ahead of time to give you the opportunity to reduce any overspend that you’re on course to make. It’s easy to send usage reports at the end of term, or end of year, but by this stage, you’ve already spent the money.

10. How do you handle feedback, and do you have a process for continuous improvement in customer service?

To round off our questions, it’s important to understand whether your supplier is proactively looking at how they can improve, or whether they’re doing the bare minimum to ensure they keep you as a customer. While the printers and the kit may look the same, suppliers are not all equal and some are more commercially focused than others and might put their profit margins ahead of your level of service.

By asking these questions, we hope you will be better prepared to dive deeper into just how any print supplier works and select the best one to meet your school's needs and expectations.

At EcoPrinters we only offer fixed price school printing solutions, and while you might expect this type of arrangement to cost more, everyone of our 110 schools have told us we have saved them money, with 95% reporting a significant amount saved. If you’d like to find out how much you could save, send us an email on enquiries@ecoprinters.net or request a call back using the chatbot in the bottom right hand corner of our website.