Michael Counter Email & Phone Number

Bloomington, Mn, Us

As Director of Support Services, I oversee the level one Help Desk and IT - Retail Support teams. The Level one Help Desk is a 24x7x365 staffed Help Desk that supports our Stationstores by getting their incident or request answered or directed to the group or individuals who are the subject matter experts for their incident or request. The IT - Retail Support team is responsible for NCR Radiant Point of Sale support, roll-out of new hardware and software upgrades. IT - Retail Support will also install new store POS systems and work with our Engineering Department with store rebuilds and checkout remodels.Responsible for budgeting and financial results and assisting our Operations team in forecasting IT hardware initiatives for budgeting purposes. Working with our Franchise team and providing them with an updated Technology Upgrade Summary report to allow for as much lead time for end of life hardware replacement. This allows for the Franchise owners to prepare for and budget these items well in advance of the upgrade.Using our HEAT ITSM software, our team works to find ways to collect valuable data via the Help Desk that can help our organization make business decisions and create Service Designs to help streamline processes.Promote a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) Help Desk to show our business partners the value of the Help Desk and a shift left philosophy to help drive down support costs.Utilizing my 30+ years of industry experience to better serve the people who serve our customers.

Bloomington, Mn, Us

Oversee the companies level 2 Help Desk that supports our retail stores 24x7 365 days a year. My team works on problems based on priority within our problem management system to assure our customer calls are resolved within the given SLA. We also work closely with our customers to establish a service design for issues and problems. Items that our Level 2 Help Desk supports are: • NCR / Radiant POS systems.• Fuel controllers.• Credit devices and terminals.• Microsoft Office and Windows.• Gas price signs.• Veriphone devices.• Majority of other hardware devices.Responsible for coordinate all POS and credit related software and hardware upgrades. We do both remote upgrades and on site upgrades across 10 states including Alaska. Our software and hardware roll-outs would be done by our internal staff and with outside partners. Responsible for all new store installations and support. We also support the stores when they're being remodel to ensure the POS systems are still running during construction. During new store installs we'll work with pump and car-wash vendors to ensure their systems are integrated with our POS system.My team works with outside vendors for hardware support and maintenance. We support the people who support our customers.

I was the first person hired in the newly created IT – Retail Support team in 2000, where he became a certified Radiant installer and a Radiant certified Help Desk trainer. I trained the Holiday Help Desk to be a Radiant certified Help Desk in 2002. During this time, Holiday saw strong growth in sales and rapid growth in store count. Supporting our store became more complex with the addition of hot food and the addition of new equipment, which challenged our support teams to be more efficient. Prior to 2014’s promotion, I streamlined new store installations and return to service (RTS) processes. Also, I was instrumental in training / developing our relationship with our third party hardware support provider (RDS).

I started my career on August 24, 1987 as a part time overnight sales associate at #198 Prior Lake, MN. My career cumulated in Operations as the General Manager of #246 Shakopee, MN. I led a team of 45 employees, which included a Branded Foods Manager, who managed our Taco Bell and Pizza Hut Express. Our staff also included a Store Manager, who managed the day to day truck stop operation.