We are taking the plunge at a hand full of our properties this year. We are dropping the fax lines and moving toward a scan and file interlude to paperless offices. Based on the results from this test; we may be able to carve out a $100+/- savings over the course of a year. That is not to mention the un-measurables like; lost documents, time for filing and retrieval.
The real question – are we making it difficult to do business with us? At what point do you finally stop a practice despite the small percentage of user base that may still use services that you offer?
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I dont see the point of taking away an essential, like the fax. Honestly, cut your ad spend by $100 a month and use the $1200 per unit for capital improvement. Or better yet, if no capital improvement is needed add it back to income and give a nice bonus to worthy employee(s) or pay back to shareholders.
Carmen
Thanks for the feedback.
I don’t see it as an essential given the few number of times it rings in a given month. Spammers use it more often than legitimate business users.
Hope your week is a good one.
You may know I have a known bias to this topic Mike, so I naturally agree with you. Faxes are being used less and less. There are certain inherent costs to having a fax machine; the phone line, toner, and paper. As “paperless” as we might be though, there are still times when faxing is helpful. Lease signing for instance is one of them. Have you had a lot of resistance from prospects or employees on this?
My attitude has always been, if you want someone to stop doing something you need to take it away. We haven’t removed our fax machines but reading your story gives me more confidence to try.
Bill
Too early to tell. It will be June 1 when we pull the trigger. That said, I don’t think we have a real read on it even after we drop the lions share of lines. Reason being that we have two back up plans in place to compensate. 1. Fax through our home office. 2. Fax through our sister properties that will keep fax lines for now.
With that in mind however; we are banking on the fact that most people who will need to fax a document to us can also scan that same document. And, if they don’t have the ability, their local document management outlet will.
Think about it; when fax machines were new, not everyone had one. They had to run off to an alternative location to send and receive. That is still the case to today in some isolated instances.
I do acknowledge there is and will be a transition between now and the time we are all digital. In my head, now is as good a time as any to get started.
Thank you as always for adding to the conversation. You are a tireless champion….
Have a compelling day!
M
You nailed it with the transition comment. A year from now you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner. Thanks to you for starting the conversation … you have a good day as well.
We did this at our company over a year ago with great results. We supplied each one of our properties with scanners for the ability to scan and email documents to our corporate office. We didn’t remove fax machines, our goal at the time was to reduce our overnight shipping costs and we were successful. We reduced our overnight from $4,000 to just $700 a month. Paper costs were reduced at each of our properties, but increased at our corporate, so the paper copying just moved locations. However, we did realize a huge savings with overnight fees and hopefully in the long run, we reduce our carbon footprint.
Allison
Thank you for taking the time to add to the conversation. Great work on the savings; that rocks.
We have the good fortune of being in one market so shipping has never been a big expense for us. That being said; we have things we can pull the trigger on and moving fax machines out is one of them.
We shall see where it takes us.
Hope the balance of your week is amazing.
M
I hate fax machines. Almost as much as typewriters…someone in our office nearly spent hundreds of dollars to fix one until I convinced her we no longer needed it. It is hard for people to let go of things they are comfortable with. Warning…cable tv as we know it today is probably next on the list (you have time, enjoy it while you can)
Melissa!
Thank you for chiming in as you raise a really good point. If it’s an option; people will use it. This is the only piece of technology that I can think of that endured through a rapid pace of technology change.
Hope your day ROCKS!
I hate the fax machine as much as the next guy, but…depending on your place in the market, this may or may not be such a good idea. Our property is in north county and the fax machine is used regularly by our prospects and residents. I believe this is the case at this particular property, due to the majority of our residents not having a computer and/or scanner.
I like the idea of getting rid of it, but will it hurt taking away an amenity at certain communities?
LZ
I have to imagine that you allow residents to use the fax machine to send documents; could you just as easily scan and email them? Could you set up a kiosk that allows for document scanning and sending?
That being said, you do have a great point. I do think that over time [who knows the duration] fax machines will become a thing of the past?
M
I love the kiosk idea! I do think fax machines will become a thing of the past. Remember those rolls of thermal paper we used to use?! You had to hurry and copy every fax you got before the ink wore off!
On a funny note, years ago my supply manager called a vendor to have an invoice faxed over. He was told that the person in charge of faxing was out to lunch and it would have to wait until they returned since no one else knew how to do it. I wonder if they still hold that position?
Great post Mike on moving on with technology. I am quite sure there are no 8-tracks or cassettes too much in an office environment either 🙂 Have a great and non windy Wednesday.
Wow! The faxing person was out to lunch…are they still in business?! 🙂
We don’t use a machine anymore but we still use an e-fax service. It’s great, reduces paper waste, speeds things up when you can fax directly from your computer and is cost-effective.
That’s a great idea Renee!
Myfax, Efax, or any of the other services are fine. Check the prices and compair how many faxes/pages you think you are going to be sending out/receiving. Thou switching to an electronic fax machine is going to save you time/money (less paper and ink) it will not stop the junk faxes from coming in. You will still get them (even if you are on the no call list, they still come in), my company uses myfax and we love the fact that we can report the bogus faxes online and then they are taken care of.
Another great thing for the changing of a traditional fax machine to an electroinc fax machine is that you can store all faxes on your harddrive. If you are ever required to show something you have it at your fingers. Now you my not be spending the money on paper,ink and such; you will be spending money on a new harddrive to cover the additional data.
Thanks for the ideas Larry! I’m going to have to try these services you’re recommending.
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