A scribble here to make sure you are always near. Right?

We’ve been hearing a lot from people who are stuck in contracts or leases on their current machines.  Many of them have the same thing to say…“We hate it.”.  Hate seems like an awfully strong word to use in any context, but to hate something that you are paying a lot of money for seems almost torturous.

After reviewing a few of these contracts we see that they are typically well written in regards to limiting the options for the lessee to escape the iron grip of poor service.  Like a cell phone contract that states that if your calls drop continuously you are still unable to leave the contract without financial punishment.  So the entire reason you are getting the contract is to make life easier, and now it is clearly (or not) written in the contract that your life may actually be harder due to signing this contract.  Say it isn’t so!

What can a savvy business person do?  Luckily, that is the easy part, if you follow a few simple rules:

1)      Watch what it takes to get out of the contract.  If you need to give more than 30 days notice and after doing so you need to continue to jump through hopes—pass.  Eliminate that wording or adjust it to meet your needs.  30 days is long enough to deal with a troublesome piece of office equipment.

2)      If you need to pay to get out of the contract, barter a clause that states that if the service delivered fails to meet your criteria within a given time frame, that charge is voided.  Be specific in order to be fair.  I’d suggest not allowing more than 3 visits from a technician within a week on most machines.  That is typically much more than most office machines will ever need.  If the salesperson balks at this, ask why?  What are they hiding?  Are their technicians really that poor?

3)      Avoid a service contract altogether.  You may have to be diligent about finding brands that can work with this and local service companies that work with those brands, but that is much easier than you may think.

4)      Find a month to month contract.  Or find a bank of hours to purchase at a discount.  This limits how much you need to stick your neck out.

5)      Watch how pages are counted.  You may be charged a fee per page, or given a page allowance, with excessive pages costing more.  Find out who counts what, and how.  Also find out what to do if descrepencies exist.  Better to find out now than to get an unforeseen bill for a lot of money that you disagree with.

Basically you need to make certain that your machine will work when you need it to, and that it will not cost you too much to ensure this.  A service contract seems like a great way for that to happen, but typically does not do much to guarantee that it will happen.  The best advice we can give is to actually read your contract.  If the contract is more than a few pages, or written in a super small font, be very cautious.

The best way to get out of a contract you don’t want is to not sign one in the first place.

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