If you’ve been around this industry as long as I have you probably remember the year of color. That was the year customers fully embraced color copiers and the market took off like a rocket. What year was that? You probably don’t remember the exact year since this was something that was predicted by industry prognosticators for about five straight years. I guess if you make that prediction enough times eventually you’ll get it right. And that’s kind of what happened although it didn’t happen overnight.
Now that color technology seems commonplace I thought it would be interesting to look at where we are now by getting a sense of customer’s attitudes about color. Are they asking for it, what are their page volumes looking like compared to black & white, are they happy with the current technology offerings, what speed ranges are the most popular within the general office space, and how many have found that after using it for a few years they decided they’d much rather have a monochrome device? Five dealers across the country, some large, some midsize, some small, share what’s happening within their markets and with their customers about the current state of color technology. Their comments may not paint a definitive picture, but they are enlightening all the same.
John Kuchta, President – SolutionOne – Lincoln, NE
Eric Crane, president of Copy Products, Inc. in Springfield, MO finds that color is still a big selling point and interest in color devices throughout his customer base grows every day. “With the ticket price of a color machine coming down so much it’s in reach of so many more customers,” states Crane. “We live in a color world—it’s not black & white—and color [documents] differentiates you from the competition. Color is growing and I don’t see it shrinking at all.”
Copy Products, Inc. does a fair amount of placements in the production space thanks in large part to the high-end color Konica Minolta products they carry, although the company is also doing well with 25-55 ppm devices for general office use. “The color offerings in that space are outstanding and we see every customer looking for or asking about color,” says Crane.
Recent color placements include a construction company and a law firm. “One of the biggest things they ask about is quality,” notes Crane. “Dollars and cents are always a factor, but if you have good quality output, a good quality product, and good quality service, which we have, you can get a few dollars more for your product as you should.”
Eric Crane, President – Copy Products, Inc Springfield, MO
The pitch that Crane’s reps use when selling color is a good one. “We tell them just like our office equipment represents us when we’re not there, the documents your office equipment produces represents the customer when they’re not there,” says Crane.
One of the biggest changes in Copy Products’ approach to selling color over the years is who sells it. Like many dealers they used color specialists in the beginning, but now that it’s become moremainstream, every rep sells color. “We still have techs that specialize in color on the production side because that market is a little bit different,” reports Crane.
What hasn’t changed at Copy Products, Inc. are the sales incentives; monthly, quarterly, and yearly sales contests where sales reps can still earn double points whenever they sell a color device. “We emphasize that with color, so that’s a big selling point,” states Crane.
Glenn Plank – Spectrum Business – Huntington Beach, CA
At SolutionOne in Lincoln, Nebraska, color represents about 30 percent of the dealership’s total clicks. “My color volume is my indicator of what’s going on out there,” says John Kuchta, SolutionOne president. “As long as that trend line is more than 30 percent of my click total, we’re doing a pretty good job of maintaining that color volume.”
Overall, his total click volume is up over last year by about a million clicks a month and of that figure about 300,000 is color.
Kuchta has found that his customers are savvier about color and won’t settle for less. “Today quality is a given, you have to have quality or they won’t even consider you.”
SolutionOne sells Konica Minolta and Canon devices so when it comes to color quality and quality product he’s in great shape on the quality front.
Where he sees pushback is from customers concerned about controlling costs and limiting abuse. “That’s primarily what my customers are talking to us about,” says Kuchta. “We’re leading with that and tell them, ‘we can provide you with color and the means to manage your color output so it doesn’t lose control and you have a cost edge.’”
The hottest Segments for SolutionOne are Segments 2, 3, and 4. “Most customers we talk to today have black & white and are upgrading to a color-enabled device,” explains Kuchta. “We tailor the contracts towards printing in B&W and have that at a minimum, and then they pay an overage for color. A lot of dealers think that’s risky. I might lose on a few that are only generating 5 or 10 percent in color, but I’m making it up on others that are running 40 or 50 percent in color.”
“Customers are constantly asking for color, including industries that have traditionally not,” reports Glenn Plank with Spectrum Business Centers in Huntington Beach, CA.
Plank has found that a client in the mortgage industry, which has never used color in the past, is now adding a color device to their network because they want to scan appraisals in color even though some black & white machines can do color scanning, but also for advertising, mailings, and flyers to get new business.
Chip Miceli, President – DPOE – Des Plaines, IL
“It’s not in the day-to-day operation, it’s the advertising where they find they need that color,” states Plank. “That’s an industry that’s traditionally not used color except for appraisals. It’s not that they do a ton of color, but it’s building.”
He hasn’t found any customers who acquired a color machine in the past switch back to monochrome. “Some are apprehensive because of the cost, or they’ve had it for awhile and then when they revisit it they’re more aware that they need to control their color costs and that’s where we bring up user account limits or user access codes to help restrict color usage,” says Plank.
However, limiting access to color isn’t always worth the trouble. “A lot of times we see people want to implement that off the bat and then they find it’s difficult and cumbersome within the office space,” notes Plank. “It’s more of a human resources issue than a cost issue. ‘How come X can print in color and Y can’t?’ Then they tend to remove that over time.”
Most of the color devices that Spectrum sells fit squarely into their wheelhouse—small and medium-size businesses. Those models tend to be in the 30-50 ppm range.
On the volume front Plank’s seen volumes increase tremendously during the past few months in both color and black & white. “It’s in many different industries with home builders and mortgage companies leading the way, but we’re starting to see it now in many other industries,” says Plank. “It’s a good trend, we like what we see coming and where it seems to be going.”
As far as color capabilities, Plank believes color has reached the point where the quality is pretty darn good. Spectrum doesn’t service the print shop so the focus is on business color where customers are less demanding. His customers are pleased with the quality of the color.
But what’s made a difference for many of Spectrum’s customers is the ability to print on thicker postcard stock. “Now they can print a postcard-type mailer or something more substantial on thicker paper that they can run through all the trays on the machine,” says Plank. “It’s not so much that the color quality is improving, but the quality of the papers and thickness of papers the machines can handle reliably, and that’s been a big boost to help people embrace it a little more.”
Chip Miceli, president of DPOE, in Des Plaines, IL, has been pleasantly surprised by the new Sharp high-end Polaris column systems. His customers tend to be concerned about the cost per copy of colord ocuments and concerned that employees will abuse the system. For those customers, DPOE can offer a solution. “We’ve put into place a lot of restrictions when we install a color copier so they don’t get these large bills on the color side,” says Miceli.
Unlike Plank, Miceli has found that once those restrictions are in place, they’re usually there to stay. Others customers who didn’t put those restrictions in initially occasionally come back to DPOE and inquire about ways to reduce those costs.
Ben Russert, President – ProSource – Cincinnati, OH
Besides placing color devices in the general office space, DPOE is making inroads into the production environment. “The new Sharp color products are selling a lot better than I ever dreamed they would in the production space,” beams Miceli.
That’s great news, especially since he didn’t have any relationships with those companies before he had a color device to meet their requirements. He’s also finding that many current customers are now embracing color, specifically churches.
The biggest opportunities have been with customers who haven’t had a color device before, especially those who have been outsourcing their color work. “We take the consultant approach rather than just trying to sell them a box that has color,” says Miceli.
What’s resonating with customers are the faster color devices even in the office space. “We’re selling a lot of the 50 ppm machines,” says Miceli. “We’re selling more of that than the 36 ppm machine. A lot of companies that are cutting back on the number of machines are looking for machines that are more robust so they don’t have any issues over the next five years.”
Even better, DPOE has found that once customers see these new color devices, they have a hard time saying no. “I don’t think we’ve lost a demo on this new Polaris product from Sharp yet,” reports Miceli.
When it comes to customer expectations, if DPOE is introducing color for the first time the customer doesn’t have anything to compare it to so it’s not an issue. If they’ve already had a color product they’re fussier about color quality and some of the additional features available on the machines DPOE is replacing. For example, some of those devices had Fiery controllers. “That becomes an issue for us because the Sharp doesn’t have a Fiery,” acknowledges Miceli. “If the customer is used to a Fiery, that’s hard to overcome.”
Like many dealers Miceli used color specialists in the beginning and still has one for the Sharp Polaris products, but he’s found that his down-the-street reps can also successfully sell these devices. He still offers his reps incentives for color sales—5 percent of the GP if they add color to an organization.
“No question more customers are asking about [color],” adds Ben Russert, president of ProSource in Cincinnati, OH. ProSource is doing well with production and general office color.
While you occasionally hear of businesses that purchased a color device go back to monochrome, that’s not what Russert has experienced. “By and large people have figured out what to print or not print in color,” he says. “They’ve gotten a lot smarter about their printing and they definitely like color, and don’t give it up.”
Although those who have been selling color for years are well aware of how the technology has improved, Russert’s customers are picking up on it too. “Copy and print quality is so much better and they notice it.”
ProSource has been doing well of late with Konica Minolta’s Segment 3, 4, and 5 color devices as well as the 8000 series for higher end production applications.
Unlike Crane, Russert doesn’t offer his reps incentives for selling color. They do lead with the color devices, and in his market that’s in synch with what his customers and prospects expect. “Generally, people expect equipment to have color and we don’t have to promote it heavily even though there’s a lot of pressure on price.”
After talking to these five dealers it’s clear that the days when a color copier was a novelty or a device targeted at specific vertical markets is long gone as color technology has become firmly embraced by a wider swath of the office technology buying public across a range of vertical markets. And that’s a good thing, even in the age of solutions and services.
