The audiovisual world is such an exciting place. The sights, sounds and capabilities generated from even the simplest of projects are just amazing.
We love to see client reactions when they realize what our engineers can do for them. Although understandably, their reactions become more staid once the conversation turns from technology to service contracts.
But today’s technology is so powerful, it’s even putting excitement into audiovisual service contracts.
More on that in a second. But first, in case you’re not familiar, a quality audiovisual system integration will always come with a full one-year warranty. At no cost to you, your total implementation is fully covered – equipment, parts and labor.
A service contract comes into play once the warranty expires. Like a warranty, it covers the cost of fixing or replacing equipment as needed, including cost of service calls, etc. At ExhibitOne, we call a service contract “E1Care.”
Companies like a service contract for a couple of reasons:
They eliminate the risk of unexpected maintenance costs
Stuff happens
Which is great, but not exactly exciting.
So, here’s exciting. Remote monitoring.
With today’s technology and through E1Care, ExhibitOne can monitor the status of your audiovisual solution for you. At the very first sign of a problem, a service technician is on the way.
Think about that. When do you usually find out that a bulb is burned out, the projector isn’t working, or there’s a connectivity problem? Most get the distress call right as a presentation is getting under way.
Through remote monitoring, once you are alerted to a problem, it’s often a simple fix that you can do yourself. If guidance is needed, technical support is available over the phone. On the occasion when the problem is more involved, remote monitoring gives the service technician a pretty good idea of what the issue is before s/he starts heading your way, which can significantly reduce the time before you are back up and operating.
Beyond remote monitoring, service contracts also come packed with two other important features:
Priority
Prevention
As a service contract holder, your company receives priority over any non-contracted service work. Moreover, companies needing a greater level of prioritization can incorporate service-level agreements into their service contracts.
Of course, the fastest service response is the one that never happens. This is achieved through prevention. With E1Care, a service technician comes on site twice a year and goes through your system from top to bottom, cleaning everything as s/he goes. Every function your system is capable of performing is checked and, if needed, recalibrated to original specifications. Any components falling outside of factory specifications are repaired or replaced.
Invariably, we get the question, “How is it that a component could fail or fall out of specification?” Simple. As noted above, “stuff happens.” It just does. Maybe something gets bonked by the cleaning crew. An inquisitive employee fiddles with this, that and the other thing. There are changes in your IT infrastructure that have unintended consequences for your audiovisual equipment. Or, for no reason at all, a component part fails.
A service contract has always been a best-practice standard that most companies add to their audiovisual system implementation. Although, quite frankly, it has always been the most boring best practice in our shop.
Not anymore. Having a service technician on the way before you even know there’s a problem is downright cool. But, just so it doesn’t get spooky…we always call before we show up at your door.
