Customer Service Sales

Avant Elliott

**** ** ****** ******, *** Jose, CA 95126

408-***-**** home . *******@*****.***

IT Technical Management Qualifications

Highly qualified technical manager with an extensive background in end-

user, OEM/VAR interface, customer, and sales support-providing strategic

leadership and direction for the delivery of pre-/post-sales services and

major account management.

Adept at effectively managing and developing technical support

teams/organizations that provide support to sales and customers in mission-

critical environments-supporting enterprise storage, networking, and high-

end server solutions for large enterprise accounts and data centers. Track

record of building team consensus, collaborating across functional lines

and developing strong business relationships that demands high customer

satisfaction within a fast-paced, 24x7 environment

Combines strong technical knowledge, people skills, and the ability to

relate and work with diverse customers. Ability to inspire and lead teams

to success. Analyzes operational processes and escalation procedures and

performs training needs assessments to identify opportunities for service

delivery improvements and value added services, a team player that can add

value technically. Excellent understanding of Backup and Restore

principles. Drive issue resolution with engineering management and project

teams to identify and resolve issues while mitigating customer impact

during engagements.

Collaborates effectively with cross-functional teams to introduce new

products to market, execute corporate growth strategies, obtain

market/customer acceptance, maximize service revenue, and improve customer

satisfaction. Serves as a liaison between customers and manufacturing,

sales, field service, order processing, and finance. Leading, planning,

Conduct and lead Customer Care account review meetings and directing all

aspects of field service account management and customer services delivery

within the US Field Services Western region. Participate in weekly

prioritization meetings between sales, customer support and engineering.

Experience in reviewing contractual responsibilities (SOWs) and

understanding Conditions of Satisfaction. Ability to deal with ambiguity

and adaptable to change.

Core Competencies

Account Management . Contract Negotiations . Customer Service . Expense

Control . Systems & Applications Programming

P&L Responsibility . Risk Management . Startup Operations . Systems

Installation & Support . Team Facilitation

Technical Support . Client Relations . Process Improvement . Solutions

Development . Datacenter Migration & Relocation

. Experience preparing and delivering quarterly business reviews for

clients

Professional Background

Stealth mode startup San Jose, CA 2007 to Present

Technical Consultant

. Leading a team of six engineers and developers responsible for

functionality testing of next-generation enterprise network storage

systems and providing product design and serviceability input to

management. Duties and responsibilities also include formulating

policies, managing daily operations, and planning support polices and

procedures working with the management team, the position also

contributes to the development and implementation of organizational

strategies, policies and practices.

BlueArc Corporation San Jose CA 2006 to 2007

Manager-Global Technical Support

. Led the Customer Service team while reporting to the Vice President of

Worldwide Customer Support. Interacted with peer-level managers and

cross-functional teams.

. Tasked with building the L1-L3 technical support infrastructure and

business operations in support of the company's install base. Directed

project implementation and execution in order to increase customer

satisfaction.

. Served as the primary point of contact for all support and escalated

issues. Communicated with end users as well as engineering and other

internal functional areas to resolve problems/issues. Attended Regional

Customer Counsel meetings; presented and addressed customer support

issues.

Stealth startup San Jose, CA 2003 to 2006

Technical Consultant

. Provided consulting to stealth startup in the South Bay area; worked with

the next generation of mid-range, high-speed Linux storage systems,

performing hands-on functionality testing as well as providing product

design and serviceability input to engineering.

Resume Continues

Avant Elliott

Page Two

408-***-**** home . *******@*****.***

Auspex Systems, Inc. Santa Clara, CA 1998 to 2003

Director-Field Support, Western Region and Asia Pac

1999-2003

. Led the company's customer satisfaction and support strategy with 25

employees (pre- and post-sales) direct reports overseeing overall service

delivery and escalation management in the Western Region for large NAS

file servers in a heterogeneous environment. Managed service revenue

budget and P&L. Reported to the Vice President of Worldwide Customer

Services. Meet or exceeded service sales and activity goals.

. Served as the primary contact between customers and the sustaining

engineering group. Worked closely with multiple organizations to drive

problem resolution. Project managed Datacenter Migration & Relocation and

Data Migration.

Assigned goals/objectives to field and sales engineers to ensure that

customer service strategy, escalations, and interactions with engineering

and sales were carried out while measuring problem resolution, process

efficiency, and customer satisfaction. Budgeted and staffed to budget for

the Western Region and APAC Region in a "follow the sun" support

environment, own the overall post-sales technical relationship with named

customers.

Major Accounts Technical Manager-Customer Services, 1998-1999

. Directed customer service (satisfaction) for Intel's North/South America

and Asia Pacific operations. Oversaw all technical support and customer

service escalated issues.

. Worked directly with sales and systems engineering to exceed customer

satisfaction goals and ensure that the customer base could be called upon

for future references (for new accounts). Functioned as a liaison

between customers and manufacturing, sales, field service, order

processing, and finance; resolved cross-functional issues.

. Performed technical account and situation management; focused and

coordinated information and resources to address customer issues; and

provided recommendations to service and sales management. Prepared and

delivered monthly and quarterly availability reports to customers and

management.

. Developed and implemented the service support model for major global

accounts along with field service and call-flow process for worldwide

support.

Sequent Computer Systems Santa Clara, CA 1994 to 1998

Manager-Field Support, Western Region and Asia Pac

1996-1998

. Directed the activities of 17 field engineers that were responsible for

overall service delivery and escalation management. Supported large UNIX

SAN servers in Oracle, SAP, Informix, Sybase, Peoplesoft and NT

environments across the Western US and Asia Pacific.

. Managed the service revenue budget and held full P&L responsibility.

Collaborated with multiple organizations to drive problem resolution on

all service-escalated issues.

. Developed the regional technical consulting team for capacity planning

and large Datacenter Migration, Relocation and Data Migration projects.

Established the major account management support function for the Region.

Senior Regional Product Support Specialist (Field Engineer), 1994-1996

. Assigned to provide service account management for North and South Bay

area accounts within the Western Region.

. Functioned as a technical lead, overseeing all aspects of service

delivery for major accounts-including SAN/Cluster System H/W installation

and configuration, Veritas SVM S/W, EMC Storage, remedial repair, and

hardware upgrades.

. Attended weekly customer meetings and provided service reports, post-

mortems, upgrade notification, and FCN implementation; provided technical

leadership, project planning, project management, and technical training

for peers.

Education & Training

University of California Extension, Santa Cruz, CA "Business

Administration"

Completed the Dale Carnegie "Executive Leadership" Program and the AMA

"Managing Managers" Program

Technical Summary: Linux, UNIX, Solaris, Windows operating systems; TCP-IP,

NFS, CIFS, NDMP network protocols

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