CORONAVIRUS – CUSTOMER COMMUNICATION

London, UK, 6 January 2021

We continue to closely monitor the rapidly evolving Coronavirus situation and update our business continuity plans accordingly.
 
We are aware, and cautious, of the risks at this time. We remain committed to providing the best possible service to our customers and partners. We are also focused on protecting the health and safety of our employees, customers and visitors, as well as complying with the latest UK government guidance.
Our priorities
We continue to monitor and manage the business implications of Coronavirusand the latest restrictions in place across the UK, as well as associated changes to customer requirements. Our two priorities remain unchanged:

1. To continue to safeguard the health and safety of our employees, customers and their families
2. To continue to provide our products and services to our customers

1. Safeguarding the health and safety of our employees, customers and their families

All of our employees that can work from home continue to so do so. We have advised our employees that they should adopt a ‘remote first’ approach, with all meetings and demonstrations held virtually. As an agile employer, many of our employees can work effectively from home plus we have a virtual showroom capability for some of our products and solutions. We have not seen an impact to our customer experience as a result of most of our employees working from home.
Those employees that must work outside of the home – such as our workshop and warehouse employees, and field service engineers, continue to undertake their duties whilst observing government guidelines.


We continue to monitor the health, safety and wellbeing of our employees and record any potential symptoms of Coronavirus in a central tracker. To date, in the UK, we have a small number of colleagues who have displayed potential symptoms or tested positive and some who have been or are in isolation. Exact numbers are available if required.

2. To continue to provide our products and services to our customers.

We would like to reassure our customers in terms of business continuity and their print infrastructure. Most Konica Minolta products are designed as IoT devices, platforms or applications that allow remote connectivity. This enables us to deploy and resolve issues with these devices remotely.
When an issue cannot be fixed remotely, we will liaise with customers to assess whether it is safe for an engineer to attend. Safety is our priority. We will work with customers to schedule and plan our visit, taking into account any special arrangements they may have in place in terms of health and safety measures. All our technicians have been issued with PPE equipment (masks and gloves). They will follow all site guidelines throughout their visit. We ask customers to ensure that their staff follow government guidelines in terms of social distancing and use of PPE throughout any visit by one of our technicians.
Operations in our production facilities and warehouses in China are stable and other Konica Minolta Group operations, including our European warehouses, are maintaining regular operations. We are closely monitoring UK Government guidelines and using these to review our operations whilst ensuring we continue to meet the needs of our customers. We are confident that our policies and procedures are in full compliance with the Government's risk assessments and guidance. We will of course continue to keep you updated with any changes.

For any further information, please contact your relevant Konica Minolta contact.
 
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
 
We have a wealth of information that can help you problem solve and find quick fixes if you experience any problems. Please visit our iTraining website to access these resources:
https://itraining.konicaminolta.eu
 
eBiz is our secure customer portal. Available on computers and smart devices, eBiz provides you with complete visibility of your print solution. Using eBiz you can create service requests (including requests for remote support), monitor progress of service requests, order consumables and track orders. eBiz is available at: https://ecommerce.konicaminolta.co.uk
 
Information on our remote support platforms can be found here.
 
 

FAQs Coronavirus

London, UK, 9th Julyl 2020
Konica Minolta Customer FAQ’s
Measures to Control Impact of Coronavirus on Availability of Products and Services
In response to the latest government guidelines, we would like to provide an update based on the latest information available to us and to keep you up to date, as well as addressing some of the questions you may have as we prepare for the next phase of Covid-19 and the further reopening of businesses and offices.

1. What is the most efficient way to keep machines clean?

Clean all affected areas regularly such as:

• The panel (screen and keys)
• The document feeder or the document glass
• Handles of paper trays

Use a soft cloth dampened with IPA (isopropyl alcohol) or ethanol for disinfection. Be sure to wear vinyl gloves when cleaning or wash your hands thoroughly after cleaning. Make sure you DO NOT use sprays containing solvents.

1. Are you still able to provide products and services to customers? 

We are a global organisation and through our trusted partners we continue to deliver our valuable services and solutions. We continually review how we are working based on the latest information available and are working with our partners to offer a 7-day delivery window to our customers, from the point the stock is allocated. With operations returning to regular levels we are confident in our ability to support the needs of our customers.
 
During these challenging times, customers can benefit from our remote service tools and capabilities to support their business continuity.

1. Will the delivery of Spare parts, toner and consumables continue?

Operations in our production facilities and warehouses in China have resumed to a stabilised output level. Other Konica Minolta Group Operations including our European warehouses have gone back to regular operations to ensure we can fully meet the needs of our customers.
Our factories have been working closely with each supplier for the procurement of parts necessary for production.

1. Will my machines be serviced?

We are operating within Government guidelines to service our customer’s machines where our remote capabilities are unable to resolve the issue.
Using our remote capabilities, we will aim to resolve our customer issues and we will fix as much as possible using our existing remote fix capabilities. If required on site, our engineers will observe the recommended safeguards and will look to postpone any non-urgent visits.
We are working with our suppliers to continue to deliver goods to support customers.

1. Will my new machine be delivered?

Konica Minolta Group Operations including our European warehouses have gone back to regular operations to ensure we can fully meet the needs of our customers. Manufacturing in China is back on track, we are currently receiving replenishment from our European distribution centres when required.
We are working with our partners to deliver products and hardware to support our customers. Our UK Warehouse is currently open and through our partners are able to fulfil customer deliveries. We are working with our partners to offer a 7-day delivery window to our customers, from the point the stock is allocated.

1. What should I do if my site remains shut?

If your site is shut and you were expecting a Field Service Engineer to call to maintain your machines, or if you were expecting delivery of a new machine from us, please let us know as soon as possible by getting in touch with your main point of contact within Konica Minolta.
We will not charge for cancellations under these circumstances, provided you inform us 24 hours beforehand.*
We would recommend that customers leave their machines plugged in but switched off should your site shut. For any billing enquiries please get in touch with BillingTeam@konicaminolta.co.uk – you can also request your account to be updated to PDF billing for all future invoicing.
 

1. How can I access the customer portal to monitor my account online?

Ebiz is fully accessible to all Konica Minolta customers. The portal enables customers to find up-to-date news and information about their products, keep track of systems and easily manage service notifications and record counts. Customers can access reports about selected systems and see consumable orders as well as keep track of their status.
 
As soon as your user account is activated, or you have already registered with the correct details you can log in to Ebiz at https://ecommerce.konicaminolta.co.uk To register please contact your account manager.
 

1. Do I need to provide meter readings?

If your machine is not remotely enabled, and you normally provide us with meter readings, then please continue to do so.
If your site is now shut, customers can provide meter readings via our Ebiz online portal, or by emailing to BillingTeam@konicaminolta.co.uk. If customers can’t access the machines to obtain meter readings, then we are able to estimate these for March, based on historic average usage to ensure accurate billing. If this is your preference please let us know on BillingTeam@konicaminolta.co.uk We will work with customers to understand their specific requirements.

1. Are products and services available through Konica Minolta channel partners?

For customers who work with our channel partners, our products and consumables are available as usual from either Konica Minolta directly or our Distribution Partner Westcoast.
We continue to follow Government advice to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our employees and we remain committed to supporting our Partners and customers through this difficult time. We will continue to monitor the situation daily and will update customers and partners of any changes to products, consumables or service delivery if required.

1. Will engineers continue to provide a service?

The availability of our services is heavily dependent on Konica Minolta’s own field service team. We currently have a slightly reduced number of engineers working across Europe. These engineers ensure the maintenance of products and execution of services. Since our workforce travels from client to client, our service model currently poses a potential risk for our clients as well as our employees. We have therefore implemented changes to our services model by applying remote services wherever possible: Since most of the Konica Minolta products are designed as IOT devices, platforms or applications that allow remote connectivity. Where possible, we will work with our customers to connect devices to the Konica Minolta backend systems. Any occurring incident would have the possibility of being solved remotely without intervention onsite. Only if we need to ensure connectivity or replace hardware, would a service engineer visit you.

1. What are Konica Minolta doing to ensure the safety of their employees?

We take the safety of our employees very seriously and need to do all we can to support government measures. Employees who are feeling unwell are requested to self-isolate and seek professional medical advice after 7 days, as per government guidance. All employees, where possible remain working from home, other than a reduced number of Service Engineers and Warehouse Operatives. Where we have employees, who are unable to work from home, they are following the strict government guidelines and health and safety rules in place.
We carry out weekly calls with our teams to review the situation and to support the health and wellbeing of our employees as well as sharing updates with all employees.

1. Will Konica Minolta be able to offer customers extended payment terms?

Whilst we appreciate the current conditions are very hard, they are also very hard for Konica Minolta and we cannot cashflow our customers, even our many longstanding customers.
It is because all UK businesses are in the same difficult position that the UK government is offering funding to businesses to help with their cash flows.
We recommend that you access this funding to pay us. If you will not pay us, with regret we will have to place you on stop as we have to ensure our own cash flows are adequate for us to continue trading.
Please see the government website for further advice and support during this time.
For any other finance enquiries, Genpact- who manage our customer queries and are based in India will continue to provide our customers with support.

1. Are we able to receive remote support without an engineer attending the site?

Since most of the Konica Minolta products are designed as IOT devices, platforms or applications that allow remote connectivity, where possible, we will work with our customers to connect devices to the Konica Minolta backend systems. Your Konica Minolta products could then be enabled to receive remote services. Any occurring incident would have the possibility of being solved remotely without intervention onsite.
The main benefit of remote services are they can be activated remotely – one cloud and one server based.  Working with your IT team we will be able to set you up and once this is done potentially 70%+ of the incidents will not need an engineer as we can remotely fix and issues. This includes things like firmware updates, admin password changes, address books which can be scheduled to be “pushed” to the machines overnight so there is no impact to the business and we always do this in line with any IT requirements and policies.
For any further information, please contact your relevant account manager or refer to Konica
Minolta Business Solutions (UK) Limited’s website; https://www.konicaminolta.co.uk/en-gb