Q&A with Xcel Office Solutions – Why Does My Copier Have Customer-Replaceable Parts?

Learn why copiers have customer-replaceable parts and how it benefits your business.

Jaime Hall:

Hi, my name is Jaime Hall. I’m with Xcel Office Solutions here in Oklahoma City, and we provide custom technology solutions for businesses across the state of Oklahoma. Today I’m here with Cameron Wetzel, who is our Xerox service manager. Hey Cameron.

Cameron Wetzel:

Hello. How are you, Jaime?

Jaime Hall:

I’m good. How are you?

Cameron Wetzel:

Good.

Jaime Hall:

Wonderful. Well, the reason that I asked Cameron to join us today is I wanted him to shed some light on something that sometimes becomes a source of contention among our customers. So as most of you know, we sell copiers and printers. So, anything from a small desktop printer or to a multifunction office printer and even a digital production printer. And along with those sales, we provide maintenance agreements and that maintenance includes anything from preventative maintenance, parts, and labor. And so that’s the role that Cameron and his team play in our company.

Jaime Hall:

But one thing that we see commonly is that every now and again, we might get a customer who pushes back a little bit about what we call customer-replaceable parts. So that’s why I wanted you to shed a little bit of light on today. Sometimes we have a customer who might say, okay, I’m kind of confused, I thought this was included in my maintenance agreement, but you would like me to replace the part myself. So, what I would like you to do is just kind of tell us a little bit about what customer-replaceable parts are and why they’re designed for the customer to replace in lieu of something that your team might do.

Cameron Wetzel:

Absolutely. So, a customer-replaceable part would be like a toner or a drum. It’s something that was designed by Xerox to be a quick easy replace, to speed up the customers’ replacement, repairs, whatever. They don’t require tools. It’s basically, if you think of putting paper in a machine, it basically goes along with that. It’s something just quick easy, it’s nothing that would create any issues for you or your customers.

Jaime Hall:

Okay. So, your team, you guys average historically fantastic response time is two or three hours, typically, depending on what your workload looks like. So the idea here, as I understand is just to get the customer up and running instead of having to place a service call in the event you’re busy, that might take two or three hours for you to get someplace. And so it’s just a way to get them up and running more quickly, correct?

Cameron Wetzel:

Correct. Yes. Most customer replaceable units are 30 seconds to change them and they do not take very long at all.

Jaime Hall:

Okay. Now what I have seen Cameron is that sometimes customers are a little apprehensive to touch them. They’re not comfortable. These machines are very expensive at times and we definitely have found that that can sometimes be part of what’s causing some of the pushback. We try to on the front end, educate and demonstrate how to replace these things. But is this something that your team does as well as kind of ongoing education to make them more comfortable?

Cameron Wetzel:

Absolutely. We don’t want a customer to be super uncomfortable, so we will train them the proper, improper ways to change those so they don’t damage the machines, spill toner all over, something like that. It’s just something that we always try to help them as much as we can as far as ongoing training in different aspects.

Jaime Hall:

So, before we go, can you just answer one thing? Can you kind of clarify for me and just really for our listeners, what exactly is included or what types of parts are a customer replaceable part?

Cameron Wetzel:

So, it’s usually just a toner or drum most of the time on occasion, like a color machine, you may have a waste container cartridge or something, but it’s usually 90% of it will be a toner.

Jaime Hall:

Okay. So, like something like a fuser might require a service call?

Cameron Wetzel:

Yeah, absolutely.

Jaime Hall:

Okay. I think that’s helpful for our customers to understand the difference because they do arrive at different times. And so just to be able to distinguish between those things, when I think of it, I think of anything that the machine might use and that you have to replace. So, in other words, a consumable supply, would that be fair?

Cameron Wetzel:

Absolutely. Anything that doesn’t require a tool would be kind of fall under that consumable category.

Jaime Hall:

Perfect. Okay. Well, I appreciate your time Cameron thank you for being with us today. If you’ve got any more questions about customer-replaceable parts, anything that we can answer for you, please feel free to reach out to us at (405) 748-4222 or visit us online at xceloffice.com.

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