Major Insurance Group turns to HOST for vital IT Support Training

When the outsourced print services contract came to an end, a decision was taken to bring printer support and maintenance back in-house to save on costs.

Within the printer estate, of predominately Hewlett Packard equipment, the main workhorse is the large multi-function printers capable of supporting the printing, faxing and scanning needs of a large department and therefore a key piece of equipment.

The Challenges

Given the geographical spread of the offices, timely support would be critical and therefore several staff per site needed to be skilled and empowered to offer a fast return to service of faulty equipment.

Under the outsourced arrangement, all but the most routine calls to the Service Desk were handled externally.  This led to a generation of staff who had not been exposed to hands on maintenance, a small number had such experience but needed their skills bringing up to date.

Training for the models fell under several instructor-led and web based courses and initial investigations indicated a lengthy timescale and considerable investment to obtain the necessary skills. The variety of current and legacy; colour and monochrome models in the estate would present a challenge to any training provider. The main barrier to the success of this decision was a shortage of skills amongst the support team and the cost and efficiency in obtaining those skills.

The solution

IT staff were chosen from 4 sites with a focus on giving them the skills and confidence to perform troubleshooting and repair work within the agreed service levels. HOST Computer Services were approached to assist, as they had been used for smaller scale needs previously.

They were confident in HOST’s capabilities, knowing that HP authorise them deliver courses to their partners and customers on their market leading LaserJet and Designjet portfolio.

After understanding the scope of the project, HOST created a 5-day bespoke hands on course to cover all the models and give the engineers the hands on skills and confidence to tackle any problems they faced.
HOST’s huge range of equipment really came to the fore and were also able to supply the printers, which meant all production equipment could stay in operational use.

It was a team effort with, security staff meeting the shipment on a Sunday followed by HOST’s instructor setting up the equipment ready for an early start on the Monday. The instructor was able to enhance the training by picking up live calls from the Service Desk and effect real time fixes. Not only was the training true to life, the customer’s service levels were efficiently and effectively met.  There was even some time devoted to repairing other faulty equipment - much to the delight of the customer.

Other similar bespoke courses were carried out at HOST’s premises at Haughton Hall near to Telford.  Not only is this residential training location an ideal training environment, it’s central location helped in the logistics of delegates who are travelling, being  close to road and rail links and a short taxi journey from Birmingham Airport.

There will be the occasional ongoing need for new starters to receive similar skills and for update training when newer models are introduced in the future within this proven template.

The Benefits

The project was a success and the customer’s user satisfaction remains high as they have experienced no loss of service, fully justifying the decision to bring support back in house. Costs have been reduced and the responsibility for service is now in the organisations’ own control.


For further details on this project or to enquire how HOST can assist your organisation in obtaining with Printer, Desktop or Server skills, please visit www.hostcomputers.co.uk or contact us on 01952 460551.