Jake Forrest
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
Summary
Seasoned Customer Support Professional with 14.5 years of experience, seeking to leverage expertise to take next career step with a respected organization. Incredibly self-driven and motivated to troubleshoot and work as seamlessly as possible, to help myself, teammates, customers and the wider organization. Highly skilled in Customer Service Team Leadership, 5 years experience leading by example to coach a team to uphold company principles and values to create the most impactful customer service opportunities. Consistently exceed expectations through dedicated work ethic and passion for helping people. Dedicated to self-development, ensuring consistent best practice and first-class results. Effectively implement roles of Coach, Expert, Teacher and Role Model in order to lead others into becoming acclimated to work environment, customer needs, and business operations.
Overview
15
15
years of professional experience
8
8
years of post-secondary education
Work history
Premium Technical Support Specialist Tier 1
Xplor Technologies (Mariana Tek)
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
2024.11 - Current
- Consistently met and exceeded all KPI Targets, serving as a Role Model to on-site and remote colleagues maintaining sufficient quality customer experience, communication and co-operation.
- Worked across different teams, including Customer Success, Integrations and Onboarding, to ensure maximum potential satisfaction for the custom journey, both in written form and on client calls.
- As a founding member of the on-site team, helped establish the potential of migrated internal candidates for the service and frequently helped them understand processes and critical ways of thinking and troubleshooting.
- Repeatedly helped share knowledge whether sharing findings with teammates, or documenting through Gurus to help guide others who could have the same request in future instances.
- Regularly adapted communication depending on audience needs, if customer-type was more analytical, amiable, expressive or a driver, to ensure the business brand was best positioned to offer the studio's expected level of support each time.
- Took great pride in initiative for self-improvement and areas for offered co-operation across internal support teams and other teams within the business, using critical fast-learning skills to make decisions and add that communication within the daily workflow.
- As part of the small yet effective Premium Team, took ownership and leadership of the business's reputation with bigger clients and organizations, whilst still assisting the Core audience on calls and threads where necessary, balancing workflows and adaptable to each individual request.
- Coherently seen as a reliable source for knowledge by teammates, and able to lead client calls that could otherwise be escalated by helping de-escalate and reassure in best practice.
- Additionally, always took on new processes, features and changes within the business in stride, relishing the change knowing that the design of these changes lead to an ultimately better outcome and experience.
Software Solutions Engineer
Xplor Technologies (Legend by Xplor)
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
2024.05 - 2024.11
- As 2nd Line Support, facilitated understanding and troubleshooting techniques between 1st Line Support and the Development Team, to identify resolutions and potential areas for improvement.
- As we migrated from one CRM platform to another, with many ongoing tickets being open for multiple years, outbound communicated with customers both verbally and in written form to ensure seamless communication and understanding that their overall experience was not impacted, and that previous conversation history was transferred across to ensure seamless communication and co-operation moving forward.
- Developed effective prioritization skills, identifying which specific issues required immediate attention (and corresponding levels of communication), whilst still ensuring that quality was not hindered and all targets were met.
- Effectively managed myself and other's open cases to ensure consistent updates were sent within a weekly basis, to help protect the customer experience and business reputation with reassurance that all ongoing escalations were still actively being worked on.
Customer Service Advisor
Xplor Technologies
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
2021.03 - 2024.05
- Consistently delivered high-quality customer service to both customers and clients, through verbal, written, and systematic forms.
- Frequently met and exceeded all KPI targets, ensuring quality was not hindered and all procedures were correct.
- Habitually served as a coach, expert, teacher and role-model to fellow and new employees, offering immediate assistance to ensure they were better equipped to offer improved service.
- Routinely trouble-shooted and fixed potential issues, escalating and reporting where necessary.
- Represented the service as a go-to consultant to various other departments, to help collate understanding of issues and solutions needed.
- Nominated to represent the business as Best Newcomer at the North East Contact Centre Awards 2022 (Missing out on the final shortlist as selected by the committee)
Shift Manager (Formerly Floor Manager/Crew Trainer/Crew Member)
W Liddy & Co.
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
2011.11 - 2021.04
- Managed shifts to consistently deliver the highest standards of quality, service and cleanliness, upholding the company's brand throughout.
- Took accountability of business results, Plan to Win Metrics, and the running of a reputable restaurant in line with the Restaurant and Operations Improvement Processes.
- Worked with the business manager and restaurant team to communicate and meet targets that helped improve and meet the restaurant's business plan.
- Enforced all applicable company policies and laws (such as Working Time Regulations) and created and sustained a positive and dynamic environment for all staff to work in, helping motivate results.
- Monitored and coached all service opportunities to ensure all customers received Gold Standard service, completing regular travel paths of the premises to think about the experience from customers' perspectives and respond to their complaints and issues effectively.
- Took responsibility for training of myself and staff in all areas, looking for opportunities for development and executing these where necessary, providing appreciative and constructive feedback as a teacher, coach, expert and role model.
Education
BA - English and Film & TV Studies (Joint Honours)
Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham 2012.09 - 2015.07
A-Levels - Performing Arts, English Language, English Literature, Psychology
Cramlington Advanced Learning Village
Cramlington 2010.09 - 2012.08
GCSEs - English, Maths, Biology, Drama, Chemistry, Physics, Humanities, French, Business
Cramlington Learning Village
Cramlington 2007.09 - 2010.08
Skills
- Hard Working
- Self-motivation
- Troubleshooting
- Customer retention aptitude
- Technical empathy
- Mobile device support
- Conflict Resolution
- Interpersonal Skills
- Critical thinking and problem solving
- Decision Making
- Teamwork
- Ability to Multitask
- Effective Time Management
- Leadership
- Fast Learner
- Communication
- Adaptability
- Computer Skills
- Customer Service
- Microsoft Office
- Communication Skills
- Ability to Work Under Pressure
- Ability to Work in a Team
- Staff Development
- Initiative taking
- Proactive engagement
- Software troubleshooting
- Workload prioritisation
- Technical support ticketing management
Timeline
Premium Technical Support Specialist Tier 1
Xplor Technologies (Mariana Tek)
2024.11 - Current
Software Solutions Engineer
Xplor Technologies (Legend by Xplor)
2024.05 - 2024.11
Customer Service Advisor
Xplor Technologies
2021.03 - 2024.05
BA - English and Film & TV Studies (Joint Honours)
Nottingham Trent University
2012.09 - 2015.07
Shift Manager (Formerly Floor Manager/Crew Trainer/Crew Member)
W Liddy & Co.
2011.11 - 2021.04
A-Levels - Performing Arts, English Language, English Literature, Psychology
Cramlington Advanced Learning Village
2010.09 - 2012.08
GCSEs - English, Maths, Biology, Drama, Chemistry, Physics, Humanities, French, Business
Cramlington Learning Village
2007.09 - 2010.08