How can you resolve a conflict between 3D printing sales and technical support?

While not 3DP specific, honesty and transparency. in 3DP, salesmen have a very limited amount of knowledge on the industry and a very blindered goal of a sale. Pound the square peg(sale) through the round hole no matter the size hammer needed! The customer has very limited knowledge in a very vast sea of available options. A good pitch from a salesman dodging post processing, waste handling, ancillary equipment, part limitations, environmental requirements, user skill set...can put any 3DP in the wrong location for the right price with impossible expectations because a salesman dishonestly represented the technologies capabilities/limitations. Companies could do well to contract a 3DP expert to help them make an informed decision.

Un peu d'humour en début d'année? Demandez à la seule personne vers qui tous les spécialistes semblent vouloir se tourner en oubliant le principal, le cerveau humain: CHATGPT.

Usually a technical support call is just that - support for a technical issue with equipment or materials. 3DP can be a bit trickier than other industries since results often relies on good transfer of design factors via software and operating systems, as well as understanding of expectations versus reality on what the finished parts will be be. As an example, inexperienced 3DP users may expect the same surface finish on a 3D printed part as they are used to in an injection molded part. Unless that unrealistic expectation is addressed the user may insist on tech support which won't help with finishing. Recent articles have addressed this communication and perception issue, going back to setting proper expectations at the beginning.

What Ron says is sopt-on. Velo oversold the hardware itself, without emphasizing the overalll system. Velo3D's secret sauce is in their preprint software, as well as the hardware. It's an old cliche to say you have to sell a system, not just stuff, and IMHO Velo was not as good at the end-to-end sale as one might have wished.

The key to good technical support is communication. To achieve that key you need to build a perfect way and chart of communication internally, first. With that communication, each person in the process of sales and technical support can see similar solutions.

Conflict between sales and tech support typically happens when expectations are misaligned. In my experience, it’s important to have capable application engineers who can bridge the gap between tech support and sales. Pre-sale: A good AE can help set proper expectations and prevent the sales team from over promising. This is typically accomplished through use case exploration as well as virtual and physical benchmarking. Post-sale: A good AE can assist technical support by managing things that fall outside of mechanical repairs such as file prep considerations, post-processing, part quality control, etc. If there are specific challenges that were not discovered in pre-sales benchmarking, AE’s can often find solutions or workarounds.

The premise here is silly because this is a global question, not a 3D printing question. Having been on both sides of the table: Customer requirements are almost always too tight. The technical resource can and must negotiate with the customer design owner with an understanding of the application and its context within the larger assembly/product. If this is a released production drawing or there is zero room for negotiation (see: aero, defense)... Sales almost always promises too much. It is critical to develop business processes which inject technical consultation far enough upstream in the sales funnel that these promises don't bind the technical team into an impossible or overly resource-draining corner.

Hands on experience with the equipment can be key in closing this gap. Companies often fail when they can't tie sales into practical application. Make the investment and bring sales teams into how they work. You don't have be the level of an alayst to understand the technical aspects of your Solutions. Your customers will appreciate the investment and your sales will grow as you become a trusted advisor.