Erik Thomas Email & Phone Number

Noblesville, In, Us

Took medical leave to overcome serious chronic health condition.

Arlington, Virginia, Us

Product Roadmap Development: Created and executed the product roadmap for Vemo’s inaugural loan servicing software, following Agile practices.Agile Facilitation: Conducted daily standups, backlog grooming sessions, and sprint showcases.Requirements Translation: Collaborated closely with business stakeholders to transform financial and regulatory requirements into actionable backlog items.Project Management: Managed project dependencies, tracked progress, and effectively allocated resources.Compliance and Security: Ensured compliance with consumer policies and regulations (e.g., TCPA, Consumer Privacy Policy, E-Signature Consent, ECOA Reg B, TILA). Implemented SOC2-compliant information security, SDLC, change management, incident response, and support plans.Third-Party Integrations: Orchestrated integrations with third-party services (e.g., DocuSign, ACH network) using Managed File Transfer processes.User Experience Design: Led the design and implementation of responsive end-user websites, including the loan borrower portal and company landing page.

Caregiver for a critically-ill family member following birth of daughter, followed by parental duties as stay at home dad. Can provide more details as needed.

Boca Raton, Florida, Us

Managed Tier 2 Client Support Team: Oversaw escalated and deep technical issues related to the Learn learning management system. Responsible for support relationships with all of Blackboard’s UNIX customers. These typically included learning management system administrators, instructors, instructional designers, and executive and IT staff.Client Support Point of Contact (POC): Engaged regularly with Blackboard’s largest self-hosted UNIX customers. Discussed open support issues, product roadmaps, and other concerns.Vendor Relationship Management: Worked closely with outsourced Tier 1 vendor. Conducted regular status calls and visits to address staffing, process decisions, and communication regarding critical customers or issues.Social Media Support: Managed Blackboard Support’s social media channels. Communicated release announcements, addressed questions, and resolved technical issues through community platforms.Product Management Collaboration: Regularly met with the product management team. Tracked, prioritized, and contributed to the release plan for product bugs and feature requests.On-Call Support: Served as the on-call support manager for self-hosted customers, handling technical and upgrade issues beyond regular business hours.Performance Management and Career Development: Developed and monitored MBO goals using SMART criteria. Managed recruitment, interviews, and hiring processes. Facilitated career pathing and advancement for staff members.

Boca Raton, Florida, Us

Tier 2 Client Support Management: Oversaw a team of five handling escalated and complex technical issues related to the ANGEL, Moodle and Learn learning management systems. Addressed integration challenges, database optimization, and capacity planning.Talent Onboarding Program: Developed a “Tier 1.5” training initiative to prepare Tier 1 support team members for potential Tier 2 roles, ensuring a steady talent pipeline.Infrastructure Transition Leadership: Led the support side of a cross-team project to move the Indianapolis support group from an on-site hosting/server room to an off-site redundant data center, supporting critical business systems.Employee Satisfaction Improvement: Analyzed employee survey results post-acquisition by Blackboard. Coordinated follow-up meetings and implemented an action plan that significantly enhanced employee satisfaction.Cross-Training and Goal Monitoring: Managed cross-training efforts for Blackboard Learn and xpLor products. Developed and monitored MBO goals using SMART criteria.Metrics and SLA Oversight: Monitored support/satisfaction metrics and service level agreements (SLAs), identifying training and process improvement opportunities across Tier 1 and 2 support departments.

Boca Raton, Florida, Us

Technical Relationship Management: Responsible for maintaining technical relationships with 70+ schools across the southern and western United States, as well as one international location. These schools utilized the ANGEL learning management system (LMS).Customer Advocacy and Liaison: Acted as the primary customer advocate and liaison, collaborating with product management, development, sales, managed hosting, and other internal business units.Stakeholder Alignment: Developed deep relationships with key executives, instructional staff, and technical personnel at each site. Aligned client business needs with technical solutions, including initial LMS implementations, integrations with student information systems, grade systems, and data analysis/reporting capabilities using SQL and other databases.Sales Renewals and Customer Satisfaction: Led technical discussions during sales renewal visits, addressing challenges and ensuring high customer satisfaction and retention rates.Strategic Planning and Migrations: Regularly met with customers (both remotely and onsite) to strategically plan LMS upgrades and migrations.Post-Acquisition Transition: After ANGEL Learning was acquired by Blackboard, assisted schools in planning migrations to the Blackboard Learn LMS. Many of these customers had specifically chosen ANGEL LMS as an alternative to Blackboard, making these relationships and migrations critical.Engagement Team Management: Oversaw the Engagement Team, which directly worked with learning management system administrators to implement technical solutions and resolve client support issues.Support Metrics and Quality Assurance: Monitored support metrics, ensured customer satisfaction, managed the CRM system, and identified solutions for complex support issues across ticket lifecycles (Tier 1, Tier 2, product development, etc).Product Trial Efforts: Directed support preparations and go-to-market efforts for the limited field trial of the xpLor product.

London, Gb

Global Customer Support Planning: Collaborated with global internal and external business partners to define and implement Customer Support plans for new and updated products. Managed the entire lifecycle of these plans, from initial requirements definition to final implementation.Non-English Support Implementation: Successfully introduced Customer Technical Support’s first non-English support (knowledge base, chat, and email) for Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. Developed standards and best practices to guide upcoming Support globalization projects.Outsourcing Transition and Savings: Oversaw the transition of student support to a new outsourcing partner, ensuring a smooth process. Achieved significant per-incident cost savings and enhanced flexibility to offer Support services globally.Strategic Steering Committee Participation: Actively contributed to the Customer Technical Support Steering Committee. Focused on strategic decisions shaping the future direction of Customer Technical Support.

London, Gb

Led a full-time Customer Technical Support team of 15 (up to 20+ during seasonal peak periods) in a call-center environment.Achieved consistent excellence in the Service Excellence Program (Quality Assurance) and Customer Survey scores.Collaborated with executives and managers from other Customer Technical Support locations to standardize policies and procedures. Resulted in emergency/disaster redundancy plans and a consistent customer support experience across products.Successfully implemented a new CRM system for tracking customer inquiries. This led to robust analytical capabilities, increased backup across locations, greater efficiency, and a decrease in operating costs while gaining additional service hours.Introduced a new telephony system in the Boston location (already standard in other CTS locations). Enabled standardized analytics reports, emergency backup/redundancy, and improved flexibility to respond to system/product downtime.Directly responsible for staffing and hiring decisions within the Boston group.

London, Gb

Oversaw day to day on-floor operations of Boston Customer Technical Support.Delivered bi-weekly Service Excellence Program (Quality Assurance) results to staff.Identified training needs and coordinated with trainers to implement new-hire, seasonal, and ad-hoc training sessions covering new products and product updates, customer service and technical skills, infrastructure and systems changes, and general refresher courses.Ensured staff availability on phones, chat and email. Coordinated lunch/break/time-off schedules.Developed scheduled reports for Customer Technical Support executive team and business unit stakeholders highlighting productivity metrics and top customer-reported issues by product.Worked with business units and product teams to standardize individual product support pages/FAQs, as well as hold weekly Support meetings to discuss any priority issues. Served as sole contact for largest client, including weekend availability.Participated directly with product teams in product releases, including release quality assurance/ testing.