5 Ways A Managed Print Services Provider Can Stand Out

‘Managed print services’ refers to when an external provider helps a company optimize or manage its document output. That might mean assessing their needs, replacing any hardware that needs to be replaced, or providing parts and supplies as necessary. A good managed print services provider will also look at how the printing fleet of a company is being used.

The industry is only growing too. By 2025, it’s predicted that managed print services will be a $58 billion business globally. That means that it isn’t enough to just do an adequate job. You need to stand out, and in this article, you’ll find some tips for ways you can do just that. 

Focus On Service

At this point, the printers themselves aren’t what differentiates one managed print services provider from another. You’re not going to sell your client on resistor strength or another more up-to-date technical spec. The industry is growing, and with that growth comes the need to stand out in customer service. 

While making sure your clients have the toner, ink, or paper that they need straightforward, it’s not enough. Your clients will want a partner, someone they can rely on to be responsive and to help ensure that their printing needs are met. 

Give An App A Shot

Since most providers offer a range of services with different configurations for clients’ needs, you should be able to develop, configure, and implement apps across a client’s printing environment. They can be critical to maintaining a good workflow and effective communication between different parts of a business. Plus, if your competitors are offering similar services, it pays to be able to do so yourself. 

Security

Clients turn to managed print services providers to reduce headaches, not gain new ones. With that in mind, you need to make security a top priority. 

Here are some issues that you’ll want to consider and to make sure you can help your clients with:

Help Your Client Understand How Their Devices Are Protected

According to the kind of business your client is running, their devices will need different kinds of protection. In general, make sure you understand how to meet those needs.

Make Sure Your Client’s Print Environment Is Adequate

Your clients want to print the documents they want when they want them. You can ensure that they can do that in a way that’s secure. Walk through things with them, like whether they want their printers in the open or under lock and key. Do they have the right data encryption? What about pull printing authentication, like an ID card or password tied to a user’s account?

Do Your Best To Guarantee Print Security

Printers have some of the most exploitable vulnerabilities of any endpoint device. While IT departments sometimes overlook this, cybercriminals don’t. As a managed print services company, make sure you understand how security impacts the operation of a printer fleet.

Meet Industry-Specific Needs

Say you’ve got clients that run a medical practice; are you up to speed on how to stay compliant with HIPPA by protecting patient data? Healthcare is just one field. Government offices will worry about cyber-attacks from foreign actors. Make sure you do your research and that you’re able to meet your clients’ needs. 

If you’ve thought about these aspects of security, you’ll be well prepared to help your clients. More importantly, you’ll be able to market yourself to security-conscious clients. 

Service Needs To Be Valuable

You need to offer value to your clients. A successful provider will be one who figures out how to add capabilities to the list of services they offer. You may have to increase your costs and the prices you charge, but if the value proposition is there, you shouldn’t have a problem convincing the client that it’s worth it. People will be willing to pay more if you tell them why you need to charge what you charge.

Speed Isn’t The Be All End

While it was once the main focus, speed isn’t necessarily first in clients’ minds these days. In the past, the quickest time to print and the fastest speed on the market were the main focus for many clients. Now? Not so much.

With an increasing focus on workflow, the conversation is different. A client might be more concerned that they can scan or fax in the way they need to or that they’ll be able to easily share and print documents across remote and in-office environments. 

Final Thoughts

After taking a look at these five tips, you should have a better understanding of how to make your managed print services business stand out from the crowd. Whether it’s a focus on service, security, or making sure you have value to add, you can put your best foot forward.