I have the opportunity to talk to many flight attendants with my business travels. These men and women do their job to make us feel comfortable on a flight, bring drinks and just make the experience as pleasant as possible. They are the ones that people turn to when they have a problem or need.
Application engineers are a lot like flight attendants.
We are usually brought along to visit with a customer that has questions or a problem with an existing network or one they are planning to deploy. We have an overall understanding of the Clearfield products, but most of us have a specialty or specific product that we are the most comfortable with. That particular knowledge is why we are selected to meet with any given customer. We also tend to like the “oddball” or more challenging problems too. It stretches our knowledge but in turn gives us a high level of satisfaction to find a solution. We get a great deal of satisfaction from closing a sale, but more so in giving the customer a solution that they are comfortable with. Sometimes you really can see the light bulb appear above their heads when it all starts to make sense! There really is nothing better than watching someone “get it”.
I recently had a customer that had one of those “oddball” situations. They didn’t need me to sell them on the advantages of Clearfield; they needed someone to help solve their specific deployment problem. So, by asking some questions, looking at what they wanted to do and talking it through, we were able to find a good solution for their network need. That’s what a Clearfield Application Engineer really lives for. Shaking the hand of a customer and hearing, “I certainly appreciate you coming out here to help me with this.” It’s something that we never get tired of hearing.
And just like when the flight attendant says, “Thank you for flying with us today” — I speak for all the Clearfield Application Engineers and for all of us here at Clearfield, “Thank you for letting us help you. Feel free to ask us anything.”
While we probably won’t get you a blanket or a magazine, we certainly will help you solve that problem. Then again, we have been known to bring a drink or two if you ask nicely.
By: Scot Bohaychyk – Product Marketing/New Markets