St. Laurence Catholic Church
St. Laurence Catholic Church
Religion
Sugar Land, TX
St. Laurence Catholic School has been a longtime customer of Function4 for print equipment and service. Over the years a strong relationship was built between the two organizations through steady communication and trust. When St. Laurence Catholic Church, which is associated with St. Laurence Catholic School, decided to look at an upgrade in print equipment, it was suggested that Function4 take part in the bid.
St. Laurence Church owned the print equipment that was being used, but were being pressured by their vendor to upgrade to newer devices as their machines were “older” They received a proposal from their current vendor for multiple production/graphics pieces of equipment to replace the existing fleet, and upon meeting with Function4, were under the impression that multiple production/graphics machines were necessary.
Function4 asked for permission to interview a few of the equipment users within St. Laurence Church to get a detailed look at not only how much was being printed, but the printed documents as well. Samples files were provided for Function4 to replicate on both a graphics machine as well as a multi-function printer. Multiple in–house demonstrations took place with department heads and device users to not only see the samples, but to get a feel for what the user experience would be like on both types of machines.
At the time of the St. Laurence Church bid, Function4 supported many Archdiocese Parishes and Schools but was not part of the official Galveston/Houston Archdiocese technology contract.
To streamline legal and operational terms and conditions, an official procedures list was created by Function4 to offer to all Archdiocese Parishes and Schools. Within it are the particulars of service metrics, legal T’s and C’s that are approved by the Archdiocese Chancery, as well as pricing agreements to leverage National Cooperative Contracts for Schools and Non-Profit Organizations.
Function4’s eventual recommendation differed from that of the original vendor in that the equipment was right sized for what St. Laurence actually needed – which came with a cost reduction. Fuction4 was eventually selected as the new vendor and multiple MFP’s, a Production/Graphics unit, and a document folder were implemented. Areas with many employees received user friendly machines with the ability to “one touch” copy workflows. This made for a quick and easy user experience and saved time. The area that required high quality graphics received the document folder and a Graphics Printer commonly found in commercial print shops. Though this type of machine can be more user-involved than a smaller printer, multiple training sessions with Function4 helped to get all St. Laurence employees up to speed quickly.
While the refresh in printing equipment provided staff with easier to use and more reliable equipment, the improvements on the service side may be the area where St. Laurence Church has found the most benefit in working with Function4.
“We LOVE this machine. We really never heard from the other vendor, even when we had a problem it took days for a response. I especially love the service we get. Your repairs guys, sorry I forgot their names cause I haven’t needed service recently, are always so friendly and always answer questions when they come here. They even let us practice using different functions on the machine, so we know what we are doing, and they never rush us. There’s been a couple of times when I ran out of supplies and when I call or email asking for help, I always get what I need right away.” Paula Savo | Receptionist, Saint Laurence Church
Since the time of install, multiple projects have been explored from reducing desktop printer costs with a flat fee monthly toner program, to a future electronic forms software for student registration. The relationship between Function4 and St. Laurence Catholic Church and School has continued to grow and has sparked relationships with many other Archdiocese Parishes and Schools.