It seems that in every office and work environment there are one or two “Key Operators” that know all the ins and outs of using the office copier and the remainder of the staff have limited understanding on how to utilize the full extent of the available features.
This dilemma raises flags on two different fronts; first, it means that a large portion of the staff is not able to benefit by having access to use the office copier to the extent of its capabilities. Second, it means that the one or two key operators that do now how to use all of the capabilities are constantly interrupted to help facilitate various copying/printing tasks for the remainder of the staff.
One way to eliminate the dilemma outlined above is to make sure that the service provider for your office copier is willing to provide complimentary follow up training for staff members that rely on the copier. Most companies have turnover on their staff during the life of a copier which results in having a portion of the staff unfamiliar with the inner workings of the office copier. By scheduling an annual training you will enable existing staff members to have questions answered and newer staff members to receive the training necessary to adequately operate the copier to its capabilities.
Additionally, have the customer support representative from your copier service provider help you to create shortcuts. Shortcuts allow you to take all of the individual steps necessary to accommodate a more complicated copying or printing procedure and program these multiple steps into a single step shortcut. The end user can simply touch the button for “Shortcut #1” for example and the machine will automatically change its settings to accommodate a specific task.
As an example, you can create a single button shortcut that instructing the machine to use the following group of settings: 2 sided copying, use color paper that is kept in tray #3, import a date stamp on page #1 and place a corner staple in each set of copies. By simply selecting a single shortcut button the end user doesn’t need to manually select these four individual settings needed to accomplish the end result of their copy job. Shortcuts can also be stored in the printer driver settings on an individual computer allowing users to select a shortcut to accommodate print jobs that require multiple settings to accomplish the desired outcome.
In summary it is important that when deciding where to purchase/lease your next office copier that you confirm that your copier service provider is willing to provide complimentary annual trainings to support new staff members and answer questions.
It is also important to confirm that your copier service provider is willing to offer complimentary telephone support when staff members have an operational question. Lastly it is critical that during the initial setup of the machine that your copier service provider will help you setup shortcuts to streamline the ability to complete the more challenging copy and print jobs done by your organization.
