United States
MPS is Designed to Save Your Customers Money
Managed print services are designed to save your customer money by making their print environment more efficient. This cost savings should be presented by educating the client on their true total cost of ownership of their print fleet and related business processes.Current costs need to be captured through a defined assessment process that includes a collection of the actual spend. This can be captured with a thorough analysis of current contracts, purchasing and invoices from accounts payable. It is also imperative you help educate your clients the difference between acquisition costs of their print devices vs. total cost of ownership.
A proper assessment will also capture the costs of related business processes to support the printers that can include:
- Internal print triage / IT helpdesk calls
- Internal IT support time
- Process to order consumables / manage supplies
- Processing POs
- Waste
A proper assessment will also include understanding your clients pain points and goals related to print. When you truly understand the needs of your client your sales process can also shift the conversation away from price to value. If clients are hesitant to move forward with an MPS assessment utilize a sample executive summary of a print assessment and scope of work to demonstrate the value your process will bring to their organization understanding what they spend today.
Once this information is collected your MPS team can compile the client’s current spend to present in your sales process. Once the client has agreed to this analysis it is then time to address the original question “How much does Managed Print Services Cost?” You then turn the question on them and ask them “How much do you want to save?” Once you know that information you can then finalize your pricing and present your MPS proposal.
Avoiding Pitfalls in Your Sales Process
It is also key you avoid the following pitfalls in your sales process when you are asked “How much does Managed Print Services cost?”
- Citing average cost per page for other clients
- Agreeing to price stipulations prior to have accurate fleet information
- Quoting pricing off of customer supplied data that are only averages / fleet summaries
- Jumping to specific makes / models of equipment (MPS sales is NOT about a brand, it is a business process)
When you execute this simple redirect, you will find your MPS sales process will stay on track as a profitable consultative engagement vs. a quick price quote.
