How Can I Help You?
by ENA’s Brian Hubbard
In my role at ENA as an account service manager, I have the pleasure of spending time with our customers on a regular basis. I’m typically on the road three or four days a week, and try to see two or three customers a day. I’m usually meeting with technology coordinators or the directors of technology in school corporations, but occasionally I meet with a superintendent or a business manager. Some of my customer meetings are relatively quick; we talk about what the school corporation is doing and how ENA fits into their projects and I’m on the road to the next school. It’s the longer meetings that get me fired up!
ENA is in a unique position. Every one of our customers needs Internet access and many of the other services we offer. And that translates into the ability to meet with a lot of customers. When I have a chance to talk with a customer in depth about their needs, I often learn a lot about the technology projects they are working on, including projects that may not necessarily have an ENA solution I can offer. I’m a technologist at heart and I can often get a bit geeky learning what a school corporation is implementing, whether it is server virtualization or wireless controllers, student information systems or 1:1 implementations. I enjoy hearing what our customers are implementing and it helps me understand what they are working on in their school corporation.
Those conversations become valuable in another way. As I meet with other customers that are looking at what to do with a specific technology, I often share with them what I heard from another school corporation. I’ll suggest they call a director of technology I recently met or e-mail a network administrator I spoke to and tell them a little of what I learned. For example, over the past year a large number of my customers have been implementing wireless controllers to manage their wi-fi environments. It’s been great to hear different opinions about the solutions out there, and I then re-share that info with my customers that are still looking at what they plan to do. I think my customers see value in this exchange, and I enjoy it a lot.
What are you working on that has gone really well? Or what are you working on and want a feel for what we are hearing? Let me know; it’s something I love about being at ENA.
