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Europlacer is renowned industry-wide for its exemplary support infrastructure, a truth officially recognised by six consecutive annual Service Excellence Awards. Now the company’s commitment to Continuous Improvement sees the creation of a new role to specifically support key account customers – a post filled by Europlacer Service, Support & Engineering veteran Mark Bartholomew.
A key account focus is common in sales structures but is rare, and possibly unique, in a customer support capacity. The initiative comes as Europlacer identifies more of its customers running lean operations, recognising that they benefit from a more personal response to their needs. The new role will see Mark Bartholomew strengthening direct and personal relationships with customers. He will manage communications between these progressive manufacturers and the Europlacer support teams.
“We created this new role that broadly parallels a key account sales function, but critically adds deep technical knowledge to our support operation, right at the point where expertise is needed,” explains David Fenton, Group Customer Support Manager at Europlacer. “With his immense experience, Mark will be able to answer technical queries ‘on the spot’ and provide immediate advice to resolve problems. This new position carries an elevated level of authority and autonomy, allowing him to make the optimum choices for customers and eliminate delays in reporting back to Europlacer HQ.”
Bartholomew has been with Europlacer for 18 years. He served an ‘old-school’ general engineering apprenticeship specialising in toolmaking and CNC machine tools – valuable skills for the development of pick & place platforms – then studied HNC mechanical engineering, where he met the R&D Manager for Dynapert-Intelliplace. He joined that R&D department in 1985 as a mechanical technician, later transferring to customer service and application support. He moved to Europlacer in 2001.
The Blakell Europlacer Group comprises the Speedprint Technologies, Europlacer, and Blakell Europlacer Distribution business units. All three are active and pre-eminent in the electronic circuit board assembly sector with advanced product and service solutions for electronics manufacturers in the UK and globally. Speedprint Technologies is a provider of screen printing equipment used in surface mount assembly processes. Europlacer is a provider of surface mount component placement equipment. Blakell Europlacer Distribution augments the provision of screen printing and pick & place platforms in the UK with a range of associated equipment, including AOI, reflow and PCB handling.
