My wife and I are famous for taking vacations. Due to the fact that we live in Minnesota, it is almost mandatory to migrate South for a week or two to see the sun and enjoy the warm weather. Whenever we are evaluating a place we want to visit, we use a couple of different things to determine where to visit.
- Pictures/Maps – They are worth a thousand words, right?
- Personal Recommendations
- Value for the Dollar
Over the last several years, I have found that many of Clearfield’s customers use these same criteria when making decisions on fiber management. When we are talking to our customers, it is important for them to see that Clearfield’s product not only look good empty but will have a neat appearance even after they are loaded with jumpers. My coworkers tease me about how many pictures I take when we are on a customer visit but it is nice to be able to show our customers “real world” installations. Anyone can make a frame look nice in a lab or demonstration room. That is why we typically will provide photos along with our quotes that illustrate how the finished products will look in the customer’s environment. Another tool that is helpful for our customers is to visualize their exact application with Visio drawings.
It is also important to get recommendations from other users before making an important decision on your fiber management platform. Ask around about Clearfield. Ask about our responsiveness, quality and tech-friendly features. Don’t take the travel agent’s word on how nice a place is. Ask your friends and relatives who have been there before.
Value for the dollar is also another huge consideration. If you can afford to go to Fiji for the cost of a trip to Florida, wouldn’t that make sense? Clearfield is dedicated to lowering the overall cost of your fiber deployment by developing new technologies. Clearfield allows you to stretch every capital expenditure dollar using these innovative solutions.
Next time you are in the market for a piece of fiber management equipment, please do me a favor and ask your current vendor to step up. Ask them for drawings and pictures of their proposed solution. Check around and see what people think of their solution. Also compare that product to the Clearfield alternative.
By: Tom Warren – Applications Engineer