Harry Tomes

After spending 9 years developing my technical knowledge and building a good rapport with our client base, I was offered a role in Account Management. During this time I had the opportunity to use my experienced technical knowledge in order to help the business deliver high levels of service to clients to maintain and extend relationships for future business opportunities. Whilst doing this, I also continued providing technical support for my clientele wherever possible. Some of skills I picked up during this time:

• Delivered exceptional customer service, addressing customer queries and handling customer complaints. - This routinely entailed providing the technical support the client required. This way I was able to provide good management for their account, whilst also ensuring their technical needs were met along the way.
• Built rapport with new and existing customers to boost client retention.
• Oversaw account portfolio to deliver top-quality account services.
• Nurtured client relationships, scheduling on-site visits or off-site meetings to touch base on account needs.
• Handled customer concerns and complaints to resolve issues and build loyalty. In some cases this did mean I took control of the technical request and carried the work out myself. As I had the technical know-how, I was able to use this knowledge to ensure my clients trusted that I would always be able to get a solution in place, even if the support desk were having trouble.
• Analysed client feedback to highlight areas in need of improvement.
• Resolved escalated issues and liaised with clients to restore satisfaction and promote retention.
• Increased client satisfaction, implementing strategic account plans to foster growth.
• Trained and mentored new account representatives to deliver outstanding service.

Once I had gained experience from managing the Hardware Desk and supporting Tier 1 calls, I was promoted up to a Tier 2 engineer as my skillset around troubleshooting had improved during my time on the helpdesk. This now meant I was an escalation point for the more difficult tickets and cases in order to support lower skilled technicians when the issue was deemed something that might cause greater issues. During this role I was able to:

• Deliver reliable, high quality technical support to average of 50 users daily. We had a client base of around 300 companies and a support desk of around 10 engineers. This meant that work loads were extremely high on a day to day basis, as some clients were very high maintanance due to the nature of their business. An example of this would be Yours Clothing Ltd.
• Combined technical expertise and strong interpersonal skills to diagnose and resolve issues remotely.
• Experience using ConnectWise to track support tickets and document actions.
• Took ownership of my personal queue, seeing issues through to resolution or escalation as appropriate. Due to the nature of the high call load, this often meant staying late in order to ensure the clients needs were met.
• Investigated and diagnosed customer's technical and product queries. From time to time, I would have to coordinate with the products support team in order to resolve issues in a timely manner.
• Referred to internal knowledge base to quickly locate and apply up-to-date troubleshooting steps. Often updating the procedures where necessary due to out of date or additional new steps.
• Logged and followed-up on unresolved issues and edge cases not covered by internal resources.
• Offered technical expertise to contribute 3rd line of support if the ticket escalation was required.

The company also provided support to some private eduction schools in and around Bucks/London. For around a year I was placed in multiple schools as the onsite support to provide staff and students with technical assistance through-out the year, including exam period. This included keeping the business IT side of things running seemlessly throughout the year, whilst also planning and implementing upgrades for certain aspects that required it. Some of these would include the internet line, IT suites and interactive whiteboards/screens.

• I began my journey with CST as a Hardware engineer. My role was to investigate, troubleshoot and repair client hardware items such as PCs, Laptops, Printers and their internal hardware. Often this would entail formatting the device, repair the hardware faults and rebuilding the device with the required client software setup. Each client had a different configuration required so each build was never the same. The nature of the job allowed me to become experienced in Tier 1 Helpdesk Support as I was often taking calls from clients in order to help the Support desk bring their work load down and lower their ticket number. Some of my roles included but were not limited to:

• Kept high levels of customer satisfaction, explaining complex technical concepts in layman terms for easy comprehension.
• Set up and installed new hardware and software systems to customer requirements.
• Troubleshot system failures or bugs and provided solutions to restore functionality.
• Prepared equipment for staff use, installing cables, operating systems, and software.
• Carried out new hardware installations and updates, keeping systems functional and secure.
• Maintained scanners, printers and other computer peripheral equipment.
• Troubleshot problems with equipment and devices, tracing root causes and correcting problems.
• Offered technical support on-site, via phone or email for enhanced customer service.
• Performed regular upgrades to keep systems updated and in good working order.
• Assisted customers to identifying and correcting problems with installed equipment and systems.

• I started an apprenticeship with an Anti-Virus company as wanted to get my foot in the door of an IT company. While working here, I was mainly working in the renewals department under the MD. My job was to build rapport with new and existing clients in order to secure the yearly AV renewals. Some of the experience gained during my role were as follows:
• Delivered exceptional customer service, addressing customer queries and handling customer complaints.
• Built rapport with new and existing customers to boost client retention.
• Communicated with potential and existing customers in-person and over the telephone.
• Negotiated best-possible prices for maximised profit levels.
• Used management software and data analysis to forecast product demand.