Michelle Grimmius, Customer Support Specialist, and Sara Lopez, Trainer III, are all about helping people — in their job roles and in the community.
Helping Others at Work
In their jobs at Raven, Michelle and Sara work together on occasion, but not very often. However, both of their roles play a key role in providing outstanding service through customer interactions.
Reflecting on her eight years at Raven, Sara notes that there is a common thread between the sales, technical support, and training roles that she has held through the years:
The thing that has driven me in all of my roles at Raven is explaining; taking someone who doesn’t really know anything about our products and helping them understand. That’s why I think training is such a great fit for me today.
— Sara Lopez, Trainer III
As Sara noted, helping the other person understand — not just know — enables and empowers them to teach others and solve problems. In her current role as a Trainer, this equips our dealers with the basic product knowledge and tools that they need in order to guide their customers about the Raven products on their equipment.
Michelle, as a Customer Support Specialist, works to provide support in areas of manufacturing logistics. For example, if you receive a broken kit, or your kit is missing a piece, Michelle or any of our Customer Support team members would be able to help you.
We always want to make a situation as positive as we can, and treat our customers with courtesy and respect and to ensure customer satisfaction.
— Michelle Grimmius, Customer Support Specialist
Having been with Raven for almost 11 years, working in production in our former Electronic Services Division and Applied Technology before taking the support role, Michelle understands and has seen both sides of these scenarios. This helps her better relate to the customer and work with the necessary teams to come up with the best solution possible.
Supporting Raven's Commitment to STEM
What we’re doing with the STEM Program is just something that I feel so strongly about. I really like to help kids understand things, encourage them, and hopefully help them do things that they didn’t think that they could do.
— Sara Lopez
I think it’s an eye-opener, too, for a lot of kids — just to let them know what’s out there, and giving them that experience. Being part of the STEM Program is and will be rewarding.
— Michelle Grimmius
Sara and Michelle are both involved in our investment in the future. We support STEM education in our communities and schools by participating in STEM-related events, charitable giving, and hosting job shadow opportunities. As they mentioned, it is very rewarding to help these students develop confidence and skills in engineering fields. One of the activity demonstrations that the team facilitates at events involves putting together an electrical breadboard from a wiring schematic. It’s challenging at first for most of the students — but the most rewarding part, according to Sara and Michelle, is guiding them from “I can’t do this, this is hard,” to helping them finish the activity. The “light bulb” moment where they realize that they can do it — and that, if they understand this particular activity, they can also understand the technology in larger devices (e.g. Raven products, their phones, etc.) — is a fulfilling moment for students and team members alike. Helping students from 4th grade to high school have these discoveries reflects Raven’s Commitment to STEM, proactively investing in the future of STEM-related jobs and industries.
Helping Others in the Community
Outside of their normal job roles, Michelle and Sara enjoy volunteering in the communities around us — and made it a point to note that Raven helps them do so. One way that Raven helps the community is through sponsored volunteer activities. Michelle recently participated in one of these opportunities at Feeding South Dakota, adding that “it is a good feeling to make a positive impact on the community.” In addition, Sara is one of many Raven team members that serve as an LSS Mentor, spending one lunch hour per week during the school year meeting one-on-one with a local student, providing guidance through a variety of fun activities.
So, if you have one major takeaway from this article, Michelle summarized it perfectly:
At Raven, I think we just like helping people!
— Michelle Grimmius