How Princh made printing and payment self-service and efficient at SUBprint
About SUBprint
SUBprint is a full-service printing facility, owned and operated by the University of Alberta Students’ Union. Located on the University of Alberta campus, SUBprint is open to all members of the University and the surrounding community. We offer high-quality, same-day digital printing & binding services, large format printing, banner stands and other digital print products – all produced on-site.
SUBprint’s staff is largely comprised of current University of Alberta students and recent graduates. We take pride in serving the needs of our members, as well as the entire campus community.
SUBprint orders include
- Coursepacks
- Student notes and reports
- Large-format academic posters
- Full-colour banners
- Canvas wrap prints
- Other personal and institutional printing needs
“I would recommend Princh to any organization that is looking to offer a simple and intuitive self-service printing option to their customers, without having to invest in expensive or proprietary equipment.”
Challenges
SUBprint is located in the Students’ Union Building (SUB), the hub of student life on the University of Alberta campus. During the academic year, SUB is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as a place for students to gather, study, socialize and recharge. We provide a variety of full-service printing options for users during our regular operating hours, however, we wanted to provide a self-service option for printing documents at any time.
We needed a solution that was simple enough for anyone to walk up to the machine and understand, and one that was universal enough to work with any device, without the need to install drivers or software. The solution also needed to be cost-effective; while we felt it was important to offer a 24 hour self-service printing, we knew the after-hours demand would not be high enough to justify a major investment in special equipment or software.
We needed a reliable, low-maintenance system. Staff are already busy during the day fulfilling full-service print jobs, and there are no staff on-site during after-hours to troubleshoot issues with the system.
Implementation
Being on a University campus means we are part of a complex, enterprise-level network. We did face some minor challenges when sorting out things like firewall access, but the Princh Support team was very patient and accommodating while we worked through the installation process.
Now that we have installed the service and it is up and running on a printer, I feel it would be very simple for us to add additional printers in the future.
Additionally, their web-based custom printing guide poster creator is very easy to use and it was a great feature to have available to us when we were implementing the solution!
One challenge we faced during our onboarding process was the installation could only happen during business hours at Princh’s head office in Europe, leading to early morning meetings for me and our IT lead. However, since then the Princh Support team has extended their available hours, allowing for more flexible meeting times throughout the day.
Results
Previously, we used a physical vending/payment terminal, but it came to its end-of-life, and past sales volumes indicated that investing in a new one would not be cost-effective. Thus, we decided to look at Princh, whose affordable pricing, competitive card rates and compatibility with any printer made it the right fit for us.
Another benefit of Princh is security. As mentioned, the Students’ Union Building is open 24/7. The fact that the Princh solution does not require us to leave a vending/payment terminal or a computer in the public part of the building overnight has helped to alleviate concerns of theft or vandalism. The only equipment that needs to be left out is the printer.
Customers have commented that Princh’s webapp is easier to use than our old print and payment terminal, which required users to send their files to the terminal to be printed. Now, we get fewer support questions from customers, which in turn makes our staff more efficient and our customers happy. Our customers really appreciate having a self-service print option that requires no contact or interaction with staff members.
Because SUBprint’s hours of operation are not as extensive as some off-campus commercial printers, the Princh service provides us the opportunity to capture print business at all hours. This helps to keep our name and reputation front-of-mind for students and staff, and often eliminates the need for them to visit a different off-campus business.