Product Support Specialist with Customer Experience

ROBERT KRISTOF

TEL 619-***-**** • **************@*****.***

High-impact, top-performing Technical Marketing Professional with more than 20 years’ added value in driving revenues worldwide. Fast-tracked through exceedingly challenging positions requiring leadership excellence in strategic and tactical planning, and communications between staff, management, and vendors. A methodical and consistent career history demonstrating performance and growth in technical marketing, product innovation, and post-sale support. Aggressive sales and marketing tactics allow for quick client base and significant revenue increases, along with the business acumen to negotiate successfully and the technical know-how to provide expert post-sale support. Impeccable integrity and work ethic.

KEY QUALIFICATIONS

Account Management • Branding • Business Forecasting • Client Relations • Competitive Analysis • Contract Negotiations Cost Control • Cost/Benefit Analysis • Customer Service • Data Mining • Data Warehousing • Event Planning • Expense Control Financial Analysis • Financial Statements • Help Desk Intranet • Inventory Control • IT Strategy • Logistics Market Analysis Network Administration • New Business Development • Outsourcing • Post-sale Support • Presentations • Procedure Development • Process Improvement • Product Launch • Product Rollout Project Management • Proposal Development • Public Relations • Quality Control/Assurance • Repeat Business Report Generation • Requirement Identification • Special Projects Target Marketing • Technical Support • Technical Writing Technology Deployment Technology Evaluation • Territory Management • Vendor Relations • Web Design. Technology: MS Office • MS Project • MS Access • Hyperion • SAP • BW

CAREER EXPERIENCE

Hewlett-Packard Company, , San Diego, CA 2003 – 2008

Consumer Printer Division of Imaging & Printing Group

WARRANTY ANALYST / WARRANTY REDUCTION PROGRAM MANAGER

Promoted to oversee the management of per-unit warranty spending. Performed comparative analyses of costs related to telephone, web, and repair support for the organization’s regions worldwide, and presented findings to R&D and QA engineers for handling in the ongoing of product improvement initiatives. Communicated yearly cost projections to all levels of executive management.

• Slashed per-unit warranty spending by more than half within a five-year period through quarterly initiative-driven plans.

• Simplified monthly estimation models through the incorporation of advanced database query tools.

Hewlett-Packard Company, Imaging & Printing Group, San Diego, CA 1999 – 2003

Photosmart printers for worldwide call and service support centers

NEW PRODUCT INTRODUCTION ENGINEER

Promoted to initiate product design and supportability changes after successfully negotiating with R&D engineers and program team members that resulted in warranty cost reductions. Prioritized and budgeted software testing programs; researched avenues to increase ROI.

• Increased customer satisfaction through the careful management of product feature cost-management factors.

• Administered focus group testing to increase understanding of customer habits and practices.

• Executed training programs for regional support centers in North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific territories which incorporated an ongoing staff-development training effort to enhance employees’ product knowledge.

Hewlett-Packard Company, Integrated Systems Division, Novi, MI 1997 – 1999

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT ENGINEER

Selected as 1999 Division ‘LEAD’ Candidate to the organization’s management program due to success in driving new initiatives, including igniting appeal of future concepts to clients for incremental business opportunities through the creation of advanced prototypes of current products. A major contributor to the implementation of a sales funnel of global companies interested in automating IT on hand-held devices.

• Partnered with industry giants including Pepsi, GM, UPS, and FedEx for product replacements and the implementation of conceptual GPS-based diagnostic/monitoring tools.

• Worked closely with cross-functional teams during contract negotiations for the creation of products that resulted in more than $100K in incremental Support Services.

Additional Experience includes Territory & Product Support Engineer for the Automotive & Medical Product Groups, and Medical Systems Senior Customer Engineer (Hewlett-Packard Company - 1979-1997).

EDUCATION

B.S., Electronics Engineering Technology (BSEET) ― GPA 3.80 of 4.00, DeVry Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL

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