Tacton’s Support department is hard at work – and it shows. In the latest customer satisfaction survey, the department received a 90% satisfaction rating! On the team is, among others, Baran Topal. He loves both teaching and learning – and at Support, he gets both.
First things first: how did you end up at Tacton?
When I studied in Turkey, I heard great things about Sweden. I got curious and decided to take a Master’s Degree in Sweden, too. (Baran already held a Master’s in Statistics at the time).
Before I started at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm I went here to visit during the summer. The city and the weather were just fantastic, and I loved it. I guess I was tricked because wintertime in Sweden is nothing like summer (laughs).
When I graduated, I found Tacton and I’ve been here ever since. That was in 2013.
What does a normal day at Support look like?
We work with cases for all our products on a daily basis; both CPQ and Design Automation. The cases vary in nature and difficulty, and we are not dedicated to just one customer, but to all. This keeps us on our toes and the work is always evolving. We follow what our customers do. Naturally, when they develop, so must we.
Are there any misconceptions about Support and its importance?
Yes! People think that we operate much like a call center, where we copy paste text and escalate it to someone with more technical knowledge. That is not true at all. We work with everything from bug fixes to development issues. Depending on the level of complexity, we work on the issues ourselves, or with R&D and Product Management. Regardless, we are very actively involved in our customers’ products.
What is unique in providing support to manufacturers who do complex configuration?
Many of our customers are really pushing the boundaries for how you can use CPQ in manufacturing. They want a certain kind of functionality and are not afraid to try and see what’s doable.
It’s a lot of dialogue with the customers in after-sales scenarios. Our customers are curious and willing to learn, so they ask a lot of questions and use our existing resources to get knowledge. This gives us a lot of real-life cases to work with. It’s a collaboration and a learning experience all in one – every day. And the dynamics really make for a better product, in the end.
What have you learned about Tacton’s product by working with our customers?
That our configurator really is state-of-the-art. It really enables our customers to be unique in their field. They outperform their competitors.
It’s no secret that the more complex the product, the more Tacton shines. I like that we can support our customers in their globalization efforts. Our solutions are not exclusive to one office: our customers scale it as they expand their global reach.
We really specialize in complex manufacturing, and our customers are our biggest evidence.
What’s next for Support?
We recently conducted a satisfaction survey, where we got really good results. It is fun to hear that our customers are happy. But we want it to be even better. We’re aiming for 100% next year!