Nick Lara: Sr. Manager

Manage the day-to-day tactical and long-term strategic activities within the Living Spaces' Corporate Guest Services Department. Instill the ability to develop rapport with the customer base by handling difficult issues with professionalism. Help develop and implement policies, procedures and process improvement initiatives to improve retention rates and increase customer satisfaction. Regularly collect customer feedback to make process changes that help exceed customer satisfaction goals. Improve service quality and increased sales by developing a strong knowledge of company's products and services and sales methodology. Develop a team that can manage and coach to opportunities and successes as well as provide a high level of product and leadership support to representatives.

Worked diligently to foster relationships of high-profile clients while understanding and accommodating the ever-changing need for data management SaaS solutions. Partnered with implementation team from development process through to a successful launch and acted as the point of contact for the delivery of SaaS products and solutions. Participated in the development of best practices and design of training documentation. Partnered with Client Service staff to provide end-user support to the entire client base.

Managed Customer Care and Student Outreach Contact Center that consisted of 120 leadership members, support staff and front-line agents. Recruited and oversaw the on-boarding of all new Supervisors and Contact Center Agents. Managed regulatory policies that led to a 94% monthly compliance rating for the center. Improved service quality and increased staff performance by developing a strong knowledge of company's features and benefits and fostering a positive, fun and challenging environment. Fostered a feedback-rich environment that allowed for constant opportunities to improve individual skill sets that in turn created a positive impact on employee performance and customer interaction.

Managed team of 15 frontline associates. Assisted Management team with building the first in-house, Outbound Student Outreach team for the center. Such implementation increased student contact rates by 6% while significantly cutting cost by 48%. Assisted training team with the creation of Universal Agent Training Model that enabled staff to better meet the business needs and goals of the center. Piloted and managed the first Continuing Education Sales Team for the department. Partnered with our corporate marketing team to collaborate on establishing success measurements. Promoted to Vendor Relations Manager.

Worked with multiple vendors to meet set goals and metrics within the business contract. Identified areas for improvement and made recommendations to vendors that helped improve major monthly targets. Improved service level by 11% and decreased abandon rate by 6%. Developed a quality process that ensured consistent agent performance as well as superb customer interaction. Promoted to Contact Center Manager.

Maintained the staff provided excellent customer service by providing coaching and feedback to help solidify company compliance standards. Evaluated and documented the performance of contact center agents relative to business knowledge, customer service and problem-resolution skills. Assisted Quality and Training Manager with training and onboarding of new analysts. Partnered with Call Center Supervisors to coordinate face to face coaching sessions with call center agents based on trends discovered through call research and trend reporting. Identified trends in call handling, documented issues and made recommendations for management review to apply continual coaching and feedback. Promoted to Contact Center Supervisor.