Lexicon Tech Solutions CEO Josh King spoke with CDW's EdTech Magazine to lay out how K-12 schools can best support their 1:1 programs, including in-house programs and break/fix services.
Lexicon was pleased to share the insights gained in our 10 years of performing component-level repair services for 1:1 school device environments. Not all break/fix programs or device repair services are created equal, as laid out in the article and the additional responses from our CEO, below.
Additional insights from CEO, Josh King...
What are the primary benefits to a district in choosing a third-party Break/Fix service over a self-repair program?
There is no one-size fits all solution for break fix, because districts all have their own particular characteristics and challenges. Many districts do a great job with self-repair programs. But the benefits of working with a repair partner like Lexicon can also be substantial, particularly if the provider performs all repairs in-house instead of sub-contracting them out.
The most obvious advantages are speed, quality, and advanced repair capabilities. Providing high quality, reliable, and responsive device repair for education is Lexicon’s mission. All of our software systems, tech training, global supply relationships, repair equipment, and logistics networks are fine tuned to quickly repair devices to the highest standard.
Having clearly defined repair procedures, quality control standards, and a ready supply of parts already on hand eliminates most of the challenges that self-maintainers face. We also distribute the workload of technicians across multiple school systems and provide support systems that greatly enhance our technician output compared to a technician working alone. Finally, we have the ability to repair many parts (such as mainboards) that self-maintainers would have no choice but to replace. The end result is a high performance repair processing engine that can serve the needs of the education market far more efficiently than replicating the repair process in each individual district. This also frees up district employees to pursue the best and highest use of their time in student and educator-facing work.
A secondary benefit is less obvious but highly impactful. By partnering with a company that focuses solely on device repair, your district can benefit from their insight into what has and hasn’t worked across a large number of districts, rather than having to figure out these lessons by trial and error yourself.
These benefits can range from identifying unknown shortcomings in your district’s device management strategy, to uncovering critical insights into your fleet’s performance from the real-time analytics we capture from your repair and spare pool data, to having an informed and experienced advocate when you encounter a factory defect that should be covered under the manufacturer’s warranty but which requires concrete engineering data to substantiate. Lexicon has been repairing and managing one to one devices for over a decade and ensures that our partner districts benefit from this experience every day.
HOW DOES LEXICON DIFFERENTIATE FROM OTHER VENDORS OFFERING BREAK/FIX SERVICES?
Our largest differentiator is our singular focus on break fix services, combined with our strong risk management controls.
Historically, many device resellers began offering device repair because they had to in order to sell devices. Lexicon does not sell devices, so repair is our sole focus. We partner with companies that sell devices and focus on providing the best repair service available to our mutual customer.
Our experience in this industry has shown us that a good break fix plan must have excellent operational execution and risk management. Lexicon does not outsource repair. We control operational quality by performing all of our repairs in-house and focusing on constant improvement. We then provide districts with the strongest available risk management through our partnership with an AM Best A rated insurance underwriter that stands behind our break fix contracts.
We invest in our people and equipment, continually updating and refining our processes based on feedback from our customers. But because we have the experience and knowledge, when something happens with a district or there’s a challenge, we’re able to pivot and meet the challenges head on. That’s an ability that only comes with experience and it’s probably the top reason our districts stay with us–they know that we have every part of the process down to a science as well as the service to back it up.
WHAT WOULD YOU IDENTIFY AS THE PRIMARY ROI VALUE OF A BREAK/FIX SERVICE TO A DISTRICT?
No matter their size, every district has the same goal or mandate: to keep working technology in the hands of their students. Students learn on their devices, take tests on their devices, do homework on their devices. The biggest ROI value any Break/Fix vendor can offer, then, is to ensure that students always have a working device in hand so that learning can continue uninterrupted.
There are other measures where Lexicon can add value, such as using quicker return time and more effective management to lower the number of spare device purchases necessary, enabling a district to use devices over four years instead of three, or designing a device management program that limits administrative burden and easily accommodates enrollment growth, but all of these are a distant second place to ensuring students are always engaged with the curriculum. That’s why we named our break/fix service AlwaysLearning™.
WHAT ARE THE KEY WAYS LEXICON HELPS K-12 DISTRICTS WITH BREAK/FIX SERVICES?
District size as well as whether they are a self-maintainer or outsource repairs influences service levels. Lexicon serves K-12 districts in three key ways and is able to custom offerings based on specific district needs.
AlwaysLearning™ is a contract that covers your district’s devices and provides accidental damage protection (ADP) and extends the standard manufacturer warranty against defects for 3 or 4 years. AlwaysLearning has been servicing districts for over a decade and is underwritten by an AM Best A rated insurer. It is priced on a per-device per year basis.
Insurance underwriting matters because the district can be certain that their funds are protected. We have seen competitors skip on insurance underwriting in favor of offering cheaper prices. Their district customers thought they got a great deal… until the provider went out of business because their low prices were not enough to fund their repair obligations and they had no insurance underwriter to support them.
For OEM ADP, Lexicon is an ASP (Authorized Service Provider) for Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. If a district has existing ADP plans with any of these manufacturers, we can enhance their repair experience by performing the repairs under their OEM contract on the district’s behalf.
Flat Rate Repairs are for devices that are already broken. This is an ideal way to try out Lexicon or to catch up on that pool of broken devices that you haven’t been able to get around to repairing. For devices that are repairable, Lexicon repairs everything on the device for one price. We offer “RapidRepair Packs” whereby a district can pre-purchase a set number of flat rate repairs – 5, 30, 200, etc. – that never expire. Then they simply use us as they need us.
WHO DOES THE WORK ON DEVICES? HOW ARE THOSE STAFF TRAINED?
All repairs are performed in-house by Lexicon’s certified repair technicians. We are driven by procedural standards with a total of 14 individual certifications held by our technicians and engineers. Our repair techs receive over 100 hours of in-house supervised training and are certified on every device model they support.
In addition, Lexicon techs receive three (3) months of QA department reviews for completed repairs after their certification. Our Quality Assurance (QA) process for devices mandates that we fix both reported and unreported issues. This means that if you send in a device for a broken screen, we don’t stop at just fixing the screen. We perform a full diagnostic of the device to find and repair all other problems, even ones a district may not have noticed. This reduces the unnecessary return of recently repaired devices for additional issues and supports our 99.9% first-time repair success rate.
WHAT IS ONE THING K-12 DISTRICTS SHOULD KEEP TOP OF MIND WHEN DECIDING BETWEEN THIRD PARTY OFFERS FOR DEVICE REPAIR SERVICES?
Warren Buffet captured it well by saying “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” A lot of device vendors will push low-cost ADP (Accidental Damage Protection) to win price-competitive bids. Buying the lowest price makes sense if you’re evaluating the same device from multiple vendors, but repair services vary widely and the lowest price often has a lot of restrictions in practice, features subpar repair quality/timeliness, or has no financial backing protection. In both instances, the low price of repair service comes at the cost of value to the district. We’re all busy and don’t like reading fine print, but that’s what will determine what your district’s next 3 to 4 years of device support is like. A vendor should be able to clearly walk you through how their program works; not just how repairs are done, but what the limits on coverage are, how they are calculated, if there are any additional charges beyond the upfront payment (parts, deductibles, etc), and what happens if a repair isn’t covered. If a vendor says there are no limits to their coverage, ask if their plan is underwritten by an insurer, and if it isn’t, ask to see their financial statements because that is what’s protecting your investment.