Regional Customer Support & Partner Account Manager, MEA
VeriPark
Total years of experience :22 years, 3 Months
Tasked and accomplished setting up of a process-inclined Customer Support Department for VeriPark, ensuring compliance, consistency and seamless service delivery to all clients across the globe.
Key Responsibilities & Achievements:
• Built processes and standardized Support across all regions, covering Gulf, Turkey, Africa and South East Asia.
• Implemented improvements including a well-researched Help Desk solution for streamlining Incident management, Analysis and reporting
• Developed & Revised Customer Support documentation (AMC, SOW, Contracts, Customer Handbook) to better suit internal and client needs.
• Built a successful team through training and morale-building.
• Developed and established reporting methodology relating to activities, both for internal operations and external customers, by using in-house talent and BI tools. Utilized reporting results to recommend productivity and efficiency enhancements
• Performed market research surveys amongst client base to seek feedback on quality of after sales service, follow-up methods and Support techniques. Revised and Improved processes and standards wherever necessary.
• Enhanced and Developed practices for knowledge transfers and handovers between cross functional teams which includes Product and Project management in line with the Customer Support team.
• Perform quarterly staff performance evaluations and KPI’s.
• Designed performance measures and introduced quality measures that improved service levels by 95% and decreased complaint rates by 75%.
• Service contract Sales and Customer Service P&L Management.
• Achieved highest Employee & Customer retention rate (99%) amongst all departments.
• Initialized development for the Support Page on VeriPark’s website, in line with Industry standards.
• Introduced proactive maintenance measures, such as Exception logging, Net monitor tools, SQL reports etc. in our yearly and biannual Deployment Health Checks.
• Partner Account Management - Enrollment, Readiness (training's / demos, agreement sign-off), Go-To-Market & Sales (Pipeline, Events), Project Delivery assistance and Post Go-Live Support.
Accountable for developing, staffing, leadership of strategic direction and daily operational supervision of Qmatic’s Customer Support Department, which also includes the Project Management & IT Departments. Challenged and achieved building a first-class team, generated operational funding through Service contracts, and ensured strong sales pipeline/market acceptance of all new services and products within all verticals.
Key Responsibilities & Achievements:
• Responsible for annual business plans for the Customer Service Department. Anticipated expenditures and managed Customer Service team within budget every year.
• Developed, negotiated, structured and closed Service Level Agreements in new and ongoing business for Support & Service Sales along with Product Sales, Outperforming revenue targets annually.
• Improved productivity, utilization and customer satisfaction levels resulting in significant increase in Product & Solution sales and expanded market share.
• Defined and implemented key support and quality metrics and regularly reviewed data with team to determine process updates and improvements.
• Key Account Management with noteworthy achievement in retention goals, in turn ensuring recurring revenue. Clients include NBAD, CBD, Ajman Bank, RTA, HAAD, DED, ADM, DHA, DP World, TECOM, Dubai Police, Lloyds Bank, NBQ, Royal Oman Police, DRC (Oman) etc.
• Developed up-sell and cross-sell strategies and support services for both end users and Partners, improving profit margins, consequently turning the department from a “cost-center” to a “profit-center”.
• Determined a multi-level support system and created job descriptions for each level. These included pre-sales, customer service, project management, post-sales tech support and Service/Repair activities for our MENA Operations, in turn achieving Qmatic’s customer service and retention goals and in reaching revenue objectives.
• Project Management - Completed projects worth AED.18+ million and ensured on-time delivery.
• Worked closely with the Channel Management team to develop the Pre-Sales and Technical/Support team of partners. Provided training and engaged in presentations to key clients with the partner.
• Improved Productivity by developing Processes and recommending changes in tools, training, reporting and employee engagement to the Head Office (Sweden).
• Interfaced extensively with the client at both pre-sales and post-sales stages with corporate management, technical engineers and account based management to ensure that Qmatic’s products are considered for purchase against competitive offers.
• Interfaced extensively with all disciplines within the company and HQ (R & D, Product management, Licensing and others) to ensure effective cross-functionality for all Customer / Project / IT requirements.
• Directed company marketing and PR initiatives, strategizing with marketing team in the UK and Sweden, to develop cost-effective campaigns fusing marketing and sales/support goals into one cohesive, interwoven plan. Entirely responsible for Qmatic’s GITEX event for years 2008/2009/2010 - stand development, marketing, exhibitor liaison, roster etc.
Spearheaded technical support team, supervise staff performance and provide guidance, instruction to achieve company objectives and assessed quantitative and qualitative result.
Key Responsibilities
• Assisted in establishing the start -up and enhancement of customer support operations by formulating company policies, regulations, standards and recruitment for i-mate™ corporation.
• Monitor and analyze team performance, appraise staff, participate in performance evaluation of team members, prepare monthly reports and other progress assessments for the review of the upper management.
• Involved in recruiting, hiring, orientation, training, and counseling staff, and implemented organization's annual plan and timeline on the team.
• KPI’s instigated - Cases by sources/problem types/subjects, Calls trend analysis, Calls pattern by day/week, abandoned calls, peak times etc.
• 24 hour rotation/shift management including attendance, OT and Payroll management.
• Handle customer service issues such as answering queries and complaints, rapid problem resolution, document customer complaints on CRM system and conduct follow up calls to ensure absolute satisfaction with services.
• Represent the organization and presented new products for major trade shows such as GITEX, Microsoft Summit, 3GSM conferences, road shows to expand company horizons and increase client base.
• Direct training sessions for vendors such as Plug-Ins, Axiom, FONO to enable sales personnel to effectively communicate product attributes to clients.
Highlights:
• Single-handedly supervised key accounts such as Dubai Golf Association, Al Noor Centre, and Bin Hendi.
Responsibilities:
• Collaborated with key accounts to provide support and guidance in determining website content, development, and design as requested by clients whilst directing design teams in India.
• Administered clientele’s infrastructure to identify and resolve glitches, setting up network configurations, security systems and supplementary hubs, switches, and desktops as needed by client.
• Operated and managed in-house IT networks and handled installations, maintained servers, planned and responded to service outages.
• Facilitated daily use of computer software monitoring performance of network, systems, and troubleshot problems such as slow performance or network crashes.
Responsibilities:
- Handled all aspects of the IT infrastructure for the Hotel, including software installations / hardware installations / networking etc. Additionally, held office within the purchase department in the absence of the Manager.
- Monitored system performance and completed routine daily procedures to keep the system updated and backed up.
- Maintained and ensured proper running conditions of network transports and operation systems, as well as recommended future computer upgrades as appropriate.
Other Relevant Experiences:
• (01/2001 - 06/2001): Assistant Network Administrator (Intern), General Networking - Bangalore, India
• (02/2000 - 11/2000): Customer Service Associate, Zee Tele-films Ltd. - Bangalore, India