The office has long been the main battlefield in the supplies wars. Printer OEMs and aftermarket supplies vendors are engaged in fierce competition to sell toner supplies for laser printers that churn out reams of business documents in offices. In the past, the aftermarket could sell its cartridges based on price alone, but the OEMs have fought hard to drive down cost-per-page figures and have developed more sophisticated branding initiatives and other marketing and promotional efforts to retain — and even win back — some of this lucrative customer base.
Over the past couple of years, remanufacturers have begun offering a host of so-called value-added services such as maintenance plans and print-management tools as a way to strengthen their overall value proposition. This strategy not only provides business users with services they need, it also gives remanufacturers new opportunities to foster and strengthen customer relationships while increasing their bottom line. Recharger Magazine has commissioned Lyra Research to examine which services business users actually value and if their needs for these services are currently being met. The results of this survey will be published just in time for World Expo in a new report, At Your Service: Identifying Must-Have Services for Office Customers.
Corporate customers who purchase aftermarket cartridges welcome many of the services that cartridge vendors provide. According to Lyra’s survey, 99 percent of business users surveyed who buy remanufactured cartridges rated cartridge delivery and management services for empties as either “somewhat” or “very” important (see Figure 1). Only 81 percent of the respondents, however, said they receive cartridge delivery from their aftermarket cartridge vendor, and 78 percent said their vendor offers empty cartridge pickup. These findings suggest that opportunities still exist for remanufacturers to offer value-added services.
Corporate customers who purchase OEM cartridges do not appear to value services as highly as do those who purchase aftermarket cartridges. For example, OEM customers do not display the same level of demand for pickup and delivery services (see Figure 2). Twenty-two percent of this group rated cartridge delivery as “not important at all” or just “somewhat important,” and 36 percent felt the same way about empty cartridge pickup. The relative importance of cartridge pickup and delivery services to respondents appears to be directly correlated with office size. Thirty percent of sites with five or fewer employees rated cartridge delivery as an extremely important service, but 50 percent of sites with between 100 and 499 employees found this service to be extremely important.
Despite the fact that businesses that use OEM cartridges do not rate most services as highly as do businesses that use remanufactured cartridges, cartridge delivery, empty cartridge pickup, printer maintenance, and operator training are welcomed by both groups. These findings and other results detailed in the report underscore the growing role services play in winning customers for OEMs and remanufacturers alike. The report is a must-read for cartridge vendors that want to be sure they are doing the most to capture and retain market share.
The Lyra Research and Recharger Magazine report, At Your Service: Identifying Must-Have Services for Office Customers, will be published on Aug. 22, 2006, just in time for World Expo. Please visit Lyra at booth 1074 at World Expo to purchase your copy of the report, or call Sandy Tobin at 617-454-2612 or visit www.lyra.com.
