Up for a coffee with... Francesco
During our last event we stopped by our team in Milan. One of the team members is Francesco, who is responsible for the technical support in Italy. Having a background as a telecommunication engineer, he started working in the photovoltaic sector as a design engineer and in on-site commissioning activities for small to medium-sized plants. After his first years doing so, he felt the need for a change but wanted to stay in the renewable energy world. So, he joined meteocontrol Italy more than 10 years ago.
mc: Hi Francesco, good to see you. What are you currently working on?
Francesco: At the moment I am busy organizing a presentation on smart alarms in the VCOM. In fact, we have been contacted by a company that is very interested in our portal, but it has additional challenges, particularly on alerts. I´m translating how they could complete their specific tasks with the functionalities integrated in VCOM.
mc: Sounds interesting. Why don't you take us into a typical working day?
Francesco: Sure. In general my task is to respond to customers' requests and technical issues either by e-mail or as telephone requests. This is about 80 % of my working day. The rest of the time is dedicated on other activities such as customer training. But mainly, I am always available to support customers quickly and try to fulfil their requests successfully. I find it really interesting to switch the perspective.
mc: So putting yourself in the shoes of others and solving their technical problems is your main task?
Francesco: Exactly. Although I must perform very specific and repetitive tasks, I feel that I can do them in a very personal and, why not, also creative way.
mc: What do you mean by creative? Can you give us an example?
Francesco: Yes of course, I would like to share an experience related to the VCOM, our platform for monitoring photovoltaic plants. We know that VCOM is a product that is constantly being updated with new features and in fact every month there is a new release. However, I have realized during my support activities that our customers were not always aware of the new features and how they could use them. I organized some short webinars to present the latest updates for our customers in Italy. I think it was professionally rewarding for me. I personally feel that I can be very free in my work at meteocontrol. And the interconnections between the various departments work well. When faced with a problem, which you are not always able to solve on your one, there will always be someone ready to help you.
mc: What was your last challenge? And how did you solve it?
Francesco: One critical aspect is when testing the compatibility between a new external device and the blue'Log XM/XC for the first time. In case it does not work I must be patient, need to understand the problem in detail – not only for our products but also for the external product.
mc: That sounds like you're deeply involved with your work at meteocontrol. When you're not troubleshooting technical issues, what do you enjoy doing?
Francesco: Basically, anything that inspires me - reading a book, going for a hike or just learn something new. It is not tied to any special activity or hobby.
mc: Looking ahead, what do you perceive as the key perspective?
Francesco: Italy is a country full of sunshine, it would be a pity not to use this opportunity to generate clean energy. And we are currently looking for additions to our team.
If you would like to become part of the team, take a look at our vacancies: meteocontrol/com/career/our-jobs