What's Most Important in Choosing a Printer?

If you've asked this question before, you may recall advice about selecting a printer based on any number of factors - equipment or price or length of time in business or number of employees or any combination of these and other criteria.

Taken together, these criteria help you predict whether the printer you are considering has the capability and capacity to do your work, and whether you have the necessary budget. But relying on those factors alone doesn't address what we think is the most important basis for selecting a printer - the likelihood that you can depend on the printer.

We suggest something different. Whether you buy printing occasionally or often; whether you consider yourself an expert or a novice; whether you understand printing technology or not; in the end, the most important factor is outcome - did the printing you ordered arrive on time, at the price agreed upon, and to the quality standards you expected. Between the time you placed the order and the printing was delivered, did you worry about the job or were you able to move on to other tasks, confident the job would be delivered as expected?

We suggest that if you had to micromanage the job, that's a sign you're with the wrong printer - even thought the equipment, price and reputation of the printer may appear to be a perfect match with your needs.