Sell More Software by Educating Customers About QDirect Software’s Benefits

If you don’t discuss the benefits of the production print software in your solutions portfolio with customers and prospects, you are likely to miss a sales opportunity. Yes, it’s sexier to sell a new piece of production print hardware, but don’t overlook those value-add software sales that can boost productivity in print facilities and reduce costs.

An excellent example, and software that deserves more attention, is RSA’s QDirect output management software for commercial printers and enterprise in-plants. QDirect allows print facilities to control, automate workflow, route, and manage production print output on multiple devices. These capabilities increase efficiency and equipment usage and reduce costs—benefits that should resonate with most decision-makers.

What’s New about QDirect?

The latest version of QDirect allows for load balancing and grouping to a cluster of printers so jobs can be split based on copy count and color and black & white pages. The new destination cluster feature optimizes printer utilization and drives productivity and efficiency by managing a group of printers as a single virtual device. Mix printer manufacturers and even color and black & white printers in one printer group cluster. Cluster printing and automated job routing and splitting ensure that the best device for the job is used.

This feature will likely appeal to a small print shop with two or three 70-ppm MFPs that typically print small jobs except for those times of the week or month when it routinely processes a large job or jobs. Rather than printing the job on one machine while the other machines sit idle, the software drives multiple devices to complete jobs faster. The concept behind QDirect is simple and should not be intimidating to sell. For the print facility, it’s like having a single MFP that can operate at 210 ppm instead of three 70-ppm MFPs.

The secret to successfully selling the software is understanding how the print facility processes jobs. If they are working with multiple printers or MFPs, have numerous inputs, and need to manage jobs through the workflow, why not optimize it to ensure that the hardware is used more efficiently? Be sure and discuss how QDirect provides a centralized place to track and account for the jobs. The alternative is managing these tasks manually, which is far from efficient. Did someone say digital transformation? That’s another selling point of QDirect. You just may win that sale if you can capture the customer or prospect’s attention by succinctly explaining the benefits of your software’s latest features.

Feature Rich

Don’t forget to mention other, newer features of QDirect that can accelerate a print shop’s digital transformation, from controlling and automating workflow to routing and managing production print output. For example, QDirect automates on-boarding print jobs from emails, which are entered into the system, providing the shop with an easy way to ticket and process those jobs. This makes the software an excellent entry point for smaller print facilities, especially if they are not ready for Web to Print.

Not all customers are ready to upgrade their hardware, but software provides another talk track, especially when a new version is introduced. Just as print management software is routinely bundled with the MFPs you sell for traditional office customers, output management software such as QDirect should be a must-have in any production print facility with more than two printers.