It’s been a good year for laser printers: prices have plummeted and print quality (particularly with graphics) has gone up. As such we weren’t totally surprised that most respondents rated the laser printer in their home rather than their workplace unit. Out of 3000 units rated 71% were standalone devices and 29% were all-in-ones.
And it was OKI that swept the board by managing to satisfy over 95% of its customers in terms of Print Quality and Reliability. While this figure dropped to 91% when we asked about Value For Money it was still the highest score. Not surprisingly 94% of OKI customers said they’d buy from the company again leaving it as the undisputed winner.
To be fair, few people were dissatisfied with Print Quality. On average, 94% of all respondents were at least satisfied with 56% saying they were Very Satisfied. Things weren’t much worse when it came to Reliability: Lexmark scored lowest but still left 81% of its customers satisfied. All these figures show just how mature the laser printer market is.
We expected Value For Money to be more telling because it reflects the dreaded 'running costs' which can boost a printer's Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) through the roof. However, on average 82% of all buyers were satisfied and the lowest score (again from Lexmark) was a not-terrible 74%.
With all this in mind, it’s not surprising that there’s a very high degree of brand loyalty amongst buyers with 91% of all customers saying they’d buy from the same company again. This only dropped to 84% for Lexmark.
Finally, although the sandwich of other manufacturers between OKI and Lexmark was very thin, Brother’s elevated scores were such that it deserves great credit. It can think of itself as a tangy salsa on top of the filling with its Highly Commended award.
