Oct 10, 2020 
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the sales & marketing team at Europlacer have set up comprehensive ‘virtual’ demonstration facilities manned by real staff for the many businesses looking to evaluate the company’s range of surface mount assembly equipment.
Staff at the pick & place specialist know that an excellent demonstration is of paramount importance when companies are conducting evaluations of capital equipment. Europlacer sales and support people strive to make demonstrations detailed, informative and focused whilst keeping it an enjoyable experience for participants. Coronavirus restrictions initially limited the team’s ability to organise demonstrations on-site in the company’s purpose-built demo room.So they came up with a captivating alternative solution, drawing inspiration from the Europlacer motto: Performance, Adaptability, Trust.
Driving the project at Europlacer’s UK headquarters in Poole, Dorset, is Regional Sales Manager Elliot Loven. Loven took on the initiative to find a way to deliver fully interactive demonstrations, conducted over the internet, which wouldmatch the experience existing customers and prospective customers enjoy face to face.
“We adaptedour approach to deploy real-time streaming video technology and bring the customers into our demonstration room virtually,” says Loven. “The challenge was to retain a seamless customer experience as we switched between camera views and presenters. A few rehearsals helped us perfect this whilst responding effectively to questions and directions from the customer participants.”
The Europlacer demo room at Poole now resembles a broadcast studio, comprising a combination of high-end cameras, wireless audio systems, OBS software and conference equipment. It allows the Europlacer sales & support team to respond to the customer’s exact requirements, answer questions, share presentation resources and provide fully-personalised demonstrations of the machines complete with close-up action views.
Loven and his Europlacer Pre-Sales Support colleague, Daniel Ryland, recently performed the first of the live demonstrations to the total satisfaction of all involved. “The outcome was excellent with the demonstration attended by several participants from theclient’s organisation, some of whom were based at the company’s factory with others working from their home offices,” Loven explains. “We always like to invite a wide representation of people from across departments in our customers’ businesses to our conventional demonstrations. In fact, this new interactive online initiative has made that much easier to achieve,” he adds.
Europlacer does not expect its online demonstrations to replace conventional face-to-face initiatives where customers can get their own hands on the equipment being evaluated. To that end, the company can now run live demonstrations with appropriate PPE and compliant distancing procedures already in place. “However, with our streaming media system functioning so well, we expect our interactive online demonstrations to remain an option for customers in the future. It gives them the flexibility to choose what suits them best – and that’s vital while travel and gatherings remain areas of uncertainty.”
Businesses keen to participate in Europlacer’s interactive online demonstrations are invited to content Elliot Loven directly: elliot.loven@europlacer.co.uk.
The Blakell Europlacer Group comprises 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, US 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.
