Testimonial: Tom Senecal's Story

About Lasers Resource

As a managed print company, Lasers Resource is an HP reseller that services clients with HP printers and multifunction printers (MFP’s). They are based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and provide print management services to businesses like hospitals, manufacturers, law firms, and CPAs. If you’re an office equipment dealer, chances are you have a data collection agent (DCA) running in your business. This software application is responsible for recording the metrics of all the supported devices.

Tom explains that, “As an HP partner, we started evaluating how we could leverage Smart Device Services within our client base.” For Lasers Resource, that solution was EKM from Predictive InSight. “They offered the capabilities of the prior DCA that we’d been using along with a very robust and beautiful implementation of SDS inside of it,” says Tom. “That was the key differentiator and why we pursued a relationship with EKM and Predictive InSight.” Tom then explained that he and all other office equipment dealers live in a world where data reporting and predictive analysis can make a huge difference at every step of the process. “Our big three motions with those machines are you need to ship the right cartridge at the right time, you need to read the machine’s meter so that you can bill for usage, and break-fix.”

Toner Shipping

With InSight, Lasers Resource’s shipment of toner was transformed in a big way. “Their toner alerting algorithms and technology are way more advanced than the previous tool we’d been using,” said Tom. Before SDS, monitoring and ordering toner were much less precise. Ordering toner at the wrong time causes troubles across the board.  If the toner is shipped too early, customers waste toner and money. For example, many times toner is changed out with ten to twenty percent left. On the other hand, if toner arrives late, it invites an angry customer. Timing is key. “InSight is the enabling technology that allows the machine to basically phone home for toner,” says Tom. “When the copier is indicating ‘toner low’, a box with the machine ID automatically arrives right at the door.” Tom then explained that this feature successfully helped him achieve his goal of lowering costs and delivering better service to his customers.

Meter Monitoring

InSight also offered the improvement of meter monitoring and synchronization for Lasers Resource. InSight can grab the meters from the devices and report it back inside of the billing software so pages can be invoiced. “We found that we had more reliable and more accessible meter readings than ever before,” explained Tom. “We also found that we had more accurate invoicing of our customers We have more control on a per-customer basis to configure when meters sync according to the customer billing schedule HP’s new technologies offer many variations of meter types and potential new billing models. InSight offers all the meter types to our ERP software, thus enabling new kinds of billing arrangements in the future.”

Break-Fix

In the past, DCAs have really only addressed meter monitoring and toner shipping, but SDS with InSight goes a step further with remote services. “Our industry, historically, has always been that if there’s a problem with the machine, you dispatch a technician,” Tom explains. “This is one of the last bastions in the technology industry where there’s a guy showing up with a Phillips screwdriver in his hand. That being said, with the power of HP Smart Device Services, machines can now be diagnosed, updated, and reset remotely. Now we have the ability to go in remotely and reconfigure the machine, update the firmware, and reboot the machine.”

SDS has also allowed Lasers Resource to implement a help desk in their business, eliminating 25% of incoming service calls through SDS technologies and remote triage. Tom explained, “We’re even finding that, because I’ve got a technician doing remote troubleshooting when we dispatch the tech, they’ll update the service notes and say, “It’s probably this part.” The assigned tech will already know what part should be replaced, which means that our 1st-time fix rate has gone up.” Tom reported that he’s seen a 5 to 10 percent increase in 1st-time fix rates among his client base. This saves Tom’s clients time, not always having to rely on an on-site service response for a fix.

Smart Device Services - The Technology of Today

HP SDS offers businesses a powerful way to support their clientele by tapping into the cloud-based technologies of today. To take full advantage of their services, Tom depends on InSight when other DCAs have fallen short. He explained this perfectly by saying, “You’re making investments in getting meters, shipping toner, and sending technicians onsite to fix machines. If you’re an HP dealer, you’re also looking at Smart Device Services and figuring out how to leverage that and realizing that maybe if you change your data collection agent, you can actually become better at all three areas AND get SDS.”

With InSight, Lasers Resource now has access to smart toner technology, precise meter monitoring, and the ability to remotely diagnose and fix their machines. “It’s one of the most rewarding vendor experiences I’ve ever had. Every ticket we’ve sent them has been resolved in a matter of days. They’ve done custom software development to meet our needs. There are people that get it, and there are people that don’t get it. At Predictive InSight, they totally get it - they get our business.”