Service throughout ETC
Currently we have a number of Professional Services employees working with the fine folks in R+D on a several projects the most notable of which is the current development towards the release of the new Unison products. Also, just recently a Technical Services employee accepted a position in R+D to help with Acceptance Testing of ETC products before they are ready for general public release. This is an exciting time for sure and just as we are trying to make products better towards release it is also important for us to be ready to design and install systems as well as train Authorized Service Technicians on everything coming out the door.
All of this got me to thinking about all the other Professional Services people that have wandered over to other areas of the company during the past umpteen years and what benefits this gives both the employee and the company. So here's a list of people I could think of off the top of my head who have helped spread the Professional Services experience out into other areas of the company. Many of you may have talked to them on the phone or worked with them to design and install a system. They didn't go away....they're doing all they can to help make ETC that which is ETC.
Sales:
Heidi Bowers
Micah Rahn
Spencer Lyons
Marketing:
Jake Dunnum
Steve Traut
Ginger Swart
Joe Kirschling
Bryan Palmer
Manufacturing and Manufacturing Engineering:
Colin Beranek
Chad Weberg
Mike Webb
R+D:
Kristine Wolfe
Dan Talajkowski
John Hessler
John Thurk
Nick Schulze
Greg Thomas
Steven Peterson
IT:
Tony Romain
Alex Fortney
Anthony Garcia
Cori Schlegel
If you think about it, where else can you get totally immersed in product not to mention develop great customer relationships than to work in Professional Services. Ok, so yes, Sale and Marketing jobs do create this experience too. The Professional Services group is comprised of Project Managers, Application Engineers, Regional Assistants, Quotations, Customer Service, Phone Support, Repairs, and Field Service Engineers. Careers in these roles provide some unique experience and qualifications that can help improve offerings in products and services throughout the company. We have active roles in development teams, technical writing review, software testing and validation, beta testing, pre-sales technical support, and many more areas. It's great to work with all the other groups in the company and still be able to answer the phones and emails as they come in every day.
In fact, you could almost say that not only are we helping customers we're helping ourselves. You see, the more we listen to customers the more we feed info into development for product improvements. The more that the product improves for the customer, the less problems we have to work to solve. Sounds easy but it certainly is a lot to juggle and sometimes we ask for more that what is needed. This is where we achieve great balance by working with Marketing and R+D to discuss in detail the items and their priorities.
It's also great to take a hold of a field problem and be able to talk with an engineer or someone in production to get the right answer and develop a solution for the customer. It helps that the customer focus we maintain is also held by all those people in other groups that we work with. A production supervisor will ask how to make sure that the testing on the floor matches its use by a customer in the field and we jump right in to answer whatever we can. It's not uncommon for an engineer to first help us out and also ask us why this application matters. When the engineers know what customers are trying to do, the product development process moves more smoothly.
It's great to share.