Do you prefer suport engineers that know a little bit of everything or application engineers that have expertise in a specific domain (aerospace, automotive, buildings,...) ?

Do you think cfd company should be more application focussed or with just average basic knowledge? What do you prefer?

Thank you

while, I'd think application engineers are more important,

Advice: don't accept support visits from non-specialists in your application. They are the reason why your software license is more expensive than it should and also time waisters.

So if you work for a consultancy that covers a broad range of different applications using different models and techniques you shouldn't accept a support visit from anyone?

You sort of need both. If you are having licensing troubles, you just want the first support guy who can help you. But if you have a application specific problem, you want someone with intimate experience with your problem.

I think I agree with the earlier answer with a distinction. If on the phone you can get anyone, for support meetings it is important to get the right person. Nobody is interested in having time waister for meetings and they do increase your license price overall.

Even if you have many applications in consulting, you should still focus on meeting the right person and say no to the one who do not have the "hard skills".

Rex

It sounds like you've been burned recently. Any CFD vendor worth working with will have a hierarchy of support based on a skills matrix. If you are paying XXX maintenance, would you rather it went to the person on the phone when your license stops working or the person developing new features?

Support should provide quick troubleshooting and immediate solutionn at all level.

Hello Suresh,

I think Steve is right, the guy giving advice might have been burned and encountered one of those useless director/manager that does not actually have any technical skills and smirks around in support visits. There are quite a few in cfd business. I agree with Steve that users should try to avoid those parasites as they certainly increase the license price for nothing and so the license income should go to developing and support. I agree with you for email/phone support. However for customer visits, it might be better to have an "application engineer" as fluent/ansys does. It seems the right approach.

Giorgio,