Meet Chris Skinner: From Service to Sales
SIA are delighted to welcome our newest Sales Engineer, Chris Skinner. Chris is a familiar face to everyone here, having been with the business since he was an apprentice more than 12 years ago, and is now our Sales Engineer for Edinburgh, Lothian and the Borders. With a vast wealth of experience having worked all over the country and spent time offshore too, Chris has already been applying his technical background and knowledge to help our customers maximise their efficiency and reduce costs. We caught up with Chris to find out a bit more about him, and how he is getting on in his new role.
Chris joined the company in 2011 as an apprentice engineer and has been a permanent fixture of the SIA team ever since. Chris said, “I came in, and I’ve never really looked back since.” He spoke of how he has enjoyed his time at SIA so far “everyone is very knowledgeable and really get on, there’s always someone who can help you, whether it’s a compressor or otherwise.” Chris emphasised how everyone from the engineers, admin, and all the way to management are easy to talk to and all work together.
Excited to meet old and new customers in his role, Chris said “I’m always looking ahead for the next challenge. I enjoyed my time as a service engineer, but when this opportunity came up, I really wanted to take it…it’s great to see customers old and new, I’m already enjoying it.” Chris spoke of how a change in the perspective is refreshing having been in the industry for so long, “Getting to see a different side to our customers, being able to look at all aspects of their system and making sure they are 100% happy. You really focus on trying to improve their running costs or efficiency and providing the best possible service for the customer.”
Having a fantastic level of experience within the industry, Chris spoke of how he believes this will aid him in the role. “I think that's one of the things that I'm hoping to use to do well in this role. I can take my technical knowledge and now apply it to looking at customer set up. I can recommend solutions, and advise what is best for the user regards energy savings from my technical experience and industry knowledge, I can clearly justify my reasoning, not just reading from a sheet.”
With his experience in the industry, we asked Chris about the challenges that are affecting his customers and the industry at large. “Energy prices. Right now, that's one of the biggest challenges I think everybody is facing from your own homes to our customers and their Air Compressors. When we use our data loggers, we can see the numerical differences, there’s no hiding how much it has changed and the substantial increase in customers’ costs.”
However, this has presented a fantastic opportunity in Chris’ eyes “it’s one of our main aims this year, to get the price of energy used by our customers’ compressors right down and make them as efficient as possible. It gives them more money to invest back into themselves, especially right now, that’s critical.” He said saving money and reducing energy costs is something that everyone is interested in at this time, and he is hoping that with the range of products and knowledge from the team, SIA is best placed to recommend options for our customers.
When he’s not at work, Chris told us he likes going out and spending time with his partner, whether that’s a nice meal in the town, or chilling watching some documentaries at home. He enjoys his football and watches or plays whenever he gets the chance or spending time relaxing with his family. We asked Chris about a must-visit place he’s been to, and he told us “I’d say Portugal in general, I was there last summer and knew as soon as I got there that I’d like to go back at some point in the future.”
General Manager of SIA James Docherty said “It’s great to see Chris progressing and embracing a new challenge. He has been an exceptional member of the team since he arrived here, and I’m sure his high knowledge will put him in good stead for his new role. Within the Scot-JCB group of companies, we always encourage internal progression, especially people like Chris”.
Chris can be contacted on 0141 556 7301, mobile at 07976 433892 or via email at christopher.skinner@scot-industrial-air.co.uk.
