You know the machine, and you know the feeling of seeing that red light…Paper Jam. If evil was embodied in a physical form, for you, that would be a likely candidate. So short of performing a ritual, um, recycling, of the unit, what can be done?
It isn’t uncommon to have service contracts for all of the technology products within a credit union, or any business, for that matter. Unfortunately, credit unions tend to get the short straw. In fact, they pay up to 20% more than those in other industries, for the same maintenance contracts.
Credit unions are rough places, obviously. What with the food fights, office conga lines, and indoor car test drives…
Oh, those aren’t typical of your institution? They aren’t in other business environments either (or so I’m told). So why are you paying so much more for machine maintenance programs? No upper-level involvement. C-level employees are rarely involved in decisions regarding operations contracts; no one wants to be known as the micro-manager, yet there is value to being part of the process.
A big-picture view on the devices used by a credit union can save time, money, and a lot of frustration for your entire staff. When that dreaded paper jam comes back, and you know it will, who calls whom for service? (Assuming the rain dance doesn’t fix it first) Can any of your employees file a service request for a specific device? How is that request then managed? What about for multiple branches?
As you’d imagine, it gets very complicated without much complexity. Take a look at your own credit union. Count the number of cash counting units, computers, printers, copiers, ATM machines, and teller consoles you have. How many of those are under a service contract? And where do you store all of them? Then, when does each get renewed?
On top of it all, each year the companies raise your rate by up to 10%…just because.
Unifying all of this into a single system easily accessed by anyone on your team, well, think of the printers. And your staff, knowing the dreaded paper jam has an easy solution!
Full Disclosure: My company has a working relationship with a firm which offers an equipment management platform.
Photo from gifrific.com and the 100% historically-accurate 1999 film Office Space