Vijaya Vardhan Panthagani

PowerSchool

Director - Technical Support

SaaS Labs

As the head of our global customer support operation, I oversee a team of 40 engineers, 3 team leaders, and 2 managers responsible for customer support across the globe.

EFFICIENCY: 
• Implemented automated conversation snoozing, resulting in a 30% reduction in first response time and a 40% improvement in subsequent response times.
• Introduced response automation through an AI bot (FIN), with AI participating in 30% of chat conversations and achieving a 20% answer resolution rate.
• Streamlined our training plan, reducing the go-live time by 50% through live training sessions and a phased approach to handling initial customer chats.

SERVICE GROWTH:
• Introduced 4 support offerings aligned with our pricing packages, spanning both chat and email channels
• Implemented weekend US shift support for 10 DLC returning and new customers, as well as our priority customers.

SERVICE ENHANCEMENT:
• Significantly improved the refund and cancellation flow, resulting in a more than 50% reduction in refund approval time.
• Enhanced the SDR process, achieving a 30% reduction in response times for 70% of our lead volume.
• Improved help articles, leading to a 23% case deflection and a subsequent improvement in support capacity.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE:
• Expedited customer issue, feature, and bug prioritization by 30% through a monthly Voice of Customer (VOC) report shared with the global leadership team.
• Developed and executed a Customer Support and Customer Success handoff process, leading to a 30% improvement in ticket response times and positively impacting customer retention.

PEOPLE GROWTH:
• Implemented a consistent performance and promotion criteria in partnership with the HR team, mitigating the perception of unfairness and appropriately rewarding top performers.
• Invested in technical upskilling of L1 engineers and cultivated a 6-member L2 team through a dedicated technical trainer and a 3-member lean QA team.

Director - Customer Support

Atlassian

Responsible for technical support delivery, escalation management, customer experience for our Select and Priority customers. Operations and people growth for a 14 member team of senior technical support engineers supporting our Confluence suite of products.  

Over the last 2 years, while being 100% remote,

•	Built trust with my team through regular team bonding, right feedback, removing roadblocks and being an enabler.

•	Drove team success in technical specialization moving the needle from 10% to 70% while onboarding 5 new hires in the last 2 quarters

•	Stabilized the Confluence Select team across 
  - Customer orientation (improved NPS & CSAT by 27%)
	- Internal process/tools adoption (improved by 36%)

•	Leading the hiring effort for FY22 (Jul - Jun 2022) and achieved 100% senior engineer hire calls over the last 3 quarters 
 - Enabled trust and collaboration between a 6 member Talent Acquisition team, 9 peers, 4 senior management execs and 20+ senior tech interviewers  across BLR and Amsterdam
 - Defined strategy and execution. Solved for volume forecast, operational code red situation and a sub-optimal candidate pipeline

•	Leading the weekend staffing planning and execution for EMEA region during FY21 AND FY22
 - Enabled trust and collaboration between 30 senior support engineers, 4 peers and 2 senior management execs across BLR and Amsterdam
 - Defined strategy and execution. Solved for for volume forecast, regional holidays, technology upskilling and weekend compensation policies across BLR and Amsterdam.

Enterprise Support Manager

Citrix

Responsible for technical support delivery, critical escalation management and customer experience for our Priority and Priority Plus customer program. Operations and people management of a 15 member team of senior technical specialists supporting our Virtual Apps Desktops and Citrix Cloud suite of products. 

Actively engaged in support improvement programs with global stakeholders (TRMs, Account managers and Customer Success Managers) to improve our priority customer experience:

•	Reduced Average speed of answer on the call queues by 60%
•	Cross-skilled 80% of the engineers on 70% of VAD products and 100% of Cloud technologies
•	Expanded the team by 25% to accommodate the tech support for growing priority customer base @ 20% Q-on-Q
•	Executed a Rewards & Recognition program to improve priority engineer experience and retention

Senior Manager, Priority Support Program - Virtual Apps and Desktops

Responsible for technical support delivery, escalation management and people management of a 15 member senior technical specialist team for our Virtual Apps and Desktops products.  Maintained a superior customer experience with an NPS >=75.

Technical Support Manager III

Responsible for technical support delivery, operations and people management  of an 18 member team of technical experts supporting the XenServer suite of products at Citrix. Additionally, I spearheaded the below initiatives as part of my role:

•	Net Promoter Score improvement initiative which resulted in NPS moving up from 60 to 65 within 6 months.
•	Advanced Customer handling skills interventions that reduced voice-based customer escalations by 40%

Technical Support Manager II (XenServer)

Talisma

Transforming Customer Experience to over 300 Higher Education Enterprise Customers globally, in the current role as off-shore program manager of a cost center. Leadership role in scaling up release management program to 24x7. Revenue generated from the off-shore cost center - US $ 200,000 per year. Additionally, built and managing a 24x7 technical support team, to cater to Middle East and Africa geographies.

Senior Technical Support Manager - Release Management

In this role, I managed release management delivery to 300 premier US customers across all US timezones with a team of 12 technical experts.I developed skill-gap analysis for all resources and charted a proactive technical training program in-line with new technologies in the future product versions – reduced customer escalations by 50% post new product version releases.

Technical Support Manager - Release Management

In this program, I managed a profit center having 16 premium customers having one technical Talisma on-site support consultant/expert onsite, per customer, pan India.  All the remote on-site support experts were full -time employees of Talisma reporting to me. The size of the business was INR 2 crores per year. I was responsible for customer contract renewal, annually. I also managed AMC renewals of Bangalore region customers having standard support contracts, as an additional responsibility. Achieved 100% AMC renewals. Used innovative cost savings techniques to achieve 50% profit margin.

Technical Support Manager - Expert Services

Managing Customer Experience to over 100 Talisma CRM Customers in APAC & Europe region. Responsible for 24x7 product support delivery with a team of 15 technical support experts.Additionally, planned and managed delivery of two Talisma CRM upgrade projects & one server migration project with existing resources. Overall, revenue to company was INR 10 lakhs.

Technical Support Manager - Product Support

I was the Technical Escalation SPOC for a profit center (Expert Services) having around 16 premium customers across India. Quarterly travel to customer locations to review resource/system performance with customer IT/BU heads.I also assisted with finalizing Expert Services annual support contracts for existing and new customers. Additionally, I anticipated and converted a customer’s reporting business requirement into an SOW worth USD $ 10,000 and managed delivery with an existing resource – zero additional cost to company.

Technical Lead - Expert Services

Managed a USD $30,000 SQL Server reporting services project for a marquee customer of Campus Management - Career Ed Corporation, Chicago, IL. I traveled to customer location in US for requirement gathering and project planning for 4 weeks. In a short period of 2 weeks, I formed and trained a 3 member off-shore team (including myself) to meet customer's business requirements.

Technical Lead - Reporting Services

I led a team of support escalation engineers to provide solutions for high priority product bugs and Support escalations via the Sustain Engineering Program. I influenced customer oriented decisions by liaising between Support and Development as a customer advocate.

Technical Lead - Sustain Engineering

I provided Premier Application Support and was SPOC (Single Point of Contact) for Talisma CRM implementation at Microsoft. I managed a complex Talisma application installation of 10 database servers (SQL cluster), 6 IIS servers (cluster), 4 Application servers (cluster) and 20 Windows 2003 terminal servers. Provided technical mentoring and process-orientation for a team of 5 support engineers based out of Bangalore, India.

Senior Technical Support Engineer

My job was to troubleshoot and resolve Talisma product technical support cases and ensuring high customer satisfaction rates. I also did process-orientation and technical mentoring for L1 support engineers.

Technical Support Engineer

My job was to write and execute test cases for the assigned modules in the Talisma product. I was the Feature Owner for Talisma CRM Sales Module and Offline Client. I researched on the Higher Education vertical and submitted a case study on implementing Talisma CRM in a University based setup.

Software Test Engineer

National Informatics Center

This was my first internship-cum-job straight out of college. First experience with a real time programming language and databases. Developed & supported a module in VB 6.0 and Oracle 8i as part of the Land Records Management Information System maintained by the Govt of AP. The cool thing about this project was I used language API's to be able to show the front end UI for my module in TELUGU (local language).

Software Engineer

Passionate about people development and problem-solving, I leverage my 20+ years of experience in leading technical support teams to drive efficiency and growth. My forte lies in managing distributed teams in fast-paced environments, reducing delivery gaps, and crafting high-performance teams. 

As an ICF Certified Leadership Coach, I coached numerous mid and senior-level managers, transforming their leadership styles and boosting their productivity. I believe in lifelong learning and am an alumnus of Stanford's Executive Education Program. 

If you're looking for a seasoned leader who can transform your support operations or a coach to transform your leadership journey, let's connect!

Director of Customer Support

Busy building the best customer service team on the planet. Hit me up if you are passionate about elevating customer experience through employee experience. I promise you won't regret the time spent :-)

The cause of poor productivity is poor leadership



There is a lot of nuance in leadership advice. 

But after leading teams for 20+ years in product companies, I know one thing for sure:

Walking the fence between approachable and assertive is challenging.

But why does embracing both assertiveness and empathy seem so hard? 

3 reasons why:

→ Your social conditioning reinforced false narratives around these traits.
→ Your own self-doubts about striking the ideal balance are alive.
→ You've seen the downsides of going too far to either extreme.

But I feel you because I’ve been there.

Because the risk of being nice and missing targets is not worth it.

Because you don't want to be a big nanny all the time


But it doesn’t need to be this way. At all.

You can break this barrier by joining these complementary forces together


STEAL my 5-step guide:

1/ Build self-awareness

↳ But don't just catalog your communication habits
↳ Because blind spots inevitably remain

How can you ask for honest feedback when you lean too far? 
What tools could record your interactions objectively?

____________

2/ Explore roots of imbalance

↳ But resist judging those drivers too harshly
↳ Because sensitivity and boldness both arise from worthy intentions

What personal experiences underlie your empathy or assertion? 
How have those qualities served you positively at times?

____________

3/ Set boundaries with grace

↳ But don't confuse empathy with acquiescence
↳ Because deflecting discomfort enables mistreatment

How could you explain your limits while understanding others’ perspective? 
What language preserves everyone's dignity?

____________

4/ Speak truth through caring

↳ But harsh criticism alone breeds defensiveness
↳ Because delivery impacts reception as much as content

How can you give difficult feedback and still be kind? 
What questions can you ask first to understand their view?

____________

5/ Reinforce through actions

↳ But lip service without accountability erodes integrity
↳ Because people crave and respect congruent leadership

When can you demonstrate walking your talk on empathy and assertiveness? 
How can you model the blend you aim for?

____________

The most impactful leaders show heart-based authority 

Because they value themselves and their people equally. 

Be a heart led leader.


~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm Vijaya Vardhan. I help driven senior managers demolish self doubt, get clarity and level up their career 

If you liked this post, you'll love my FREE weekly newsletter. 

(Link in the comments)

Repost to help others out there ♻️

Passionate about people development and problem-solving, I leverage my 20+ years of experience in leading technical support teams to drive efficiency and growth. My forte lies in managing distributed teams in fast-paced environments, reducing delivery gaps, and crafting high-performance teams. 

As an ICF Certified Leadership Coach, I coached numerous mid and senior-level managers, transforming their leadership styles and boosting their productivity. I believe in lifelong learning and am an alumnus of Stanford's Executive Education Program. 

If you're looking for a seasoned leader who can transform your support operations or a coach to ignite your leadership journey, let's connect!

From leaders to entrepreneurs, this advice is everywhere:



“Dream big and make it happen”
“Follow your passion”
“You are not your job”

It’s common because its true.

But the advice of HOW to do this is almost always left out.

Follow this 5-step trailblazer's map:

1/ Think about your biggest dreams.
↳ Don’t worry if they seem too big or silly.
↳ Your dreams show what you really want to do.

What problems do you want to fix? 
What makes you super excited?

_____________

2/ Pay attention when things bother you.
↳ Don’t ignore these feelings.
↳ They can show you where you can make things better.

What things don’t work well and annoy you? 
How can you make them better?

_____________

3/ Look around you for ideas.
↳ You might find something new that surprises you.
↳ Great ideas come from mixing different things together.

What can you learn from different places? 
How can this help you think of new ideas?

_____________

4/ Start with small steps.
↳ Even little actions are important.
↳ Big changes start with small efforts.

How can you make a simple version of your idea? 
What little tests can you do to see if your idea works?
_____________

5/ Share your ideas with others.
↳ Don’t be shy to talk about what you’ve made.
↳ Sharing helps you find people who like your ideas.

Who can you show your work to? 
How can their ideas help you improve?


The biggest danger is letting your adventure spirit fade away.

But even a tiny success can light it up again.

Make it happen today. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I help driven managers demolish self doubt, get clarity and level up their career 

I'll show how to get UNSTUCK and develop an exponential mindset in your career.

Sign up for the webinar at https://buff.ly/3TvoZvZ

It's free.

Secure your spot now.

A big difference between good vs bad leadership



Being human.

When I lead my teams, I spend a lot of time to let them know I’m fallible

Do you feel scared  your team could lose faith in you during tough times?

Make that two. Me too.


Because turbulence is inevitable - staying the course is what matters.

But why does the idea of your leadership breaking in tough times so scary? 


3 reasons why:

→ You've seen others crumble, eroding their credibility.
→ You doubt you'd respond similarly when truly tested.
→ You desperately want to instill confidence

But I feel you because I’ve been there.

Because the risk of being like a rock and still failing is not worth it.

Because you don't want to be an “obvious loser” at the end


But it doesn’t need to be this way. At all.


You can grab the wheel and still breeze through rough waters

Follow this 5 step approach and become an unwavering guide your team craves. 

1/ Name the narrative

↳ But don't suppress or stoically dismiss reality
↳ Because acknowledging hard truths builds trust

What details around the challenge can you clearly validate? 
How can labeling the situation's importance give it respect?

___________

2/ Map the way forward

↳ But resist fabricating false certainties too
↳ Because people can smell empty assurances

What scenarios can you outline, including unknowns? 
How can you invite their insights on next steps?

___________

3/ Embody the steady

↳ But stability doesn't mean emotional vacancy
↳ Because leadership means modeling vulnerability too

How can you share your own hopes and worries? 
What mindsets or rituals center your presence?

___________

4/ Communicate constantly

↳ But don't confuse frequency with repetition
↳ Because nonstop refrains lose sheen over time

How can you adjust messaging as circumstances evolve? 
What new questions will your team have that you could proactively address?

___________

5/ Celebrate bright spots

↳ But don't undermine reality with fake positivity
↳ Because blind cheerleading erodes credibility

What minor wins could you recognize as motivators? 
How can celebrating effort over results sustain resilience?

___________

In volatile times, people follow the leaders they trust 

Because it helps them sail through uncertainty with transparency and resolve. 

Be that leader to them. 


~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm Vijaya Vardhan. I help driven senior managers demolish self doubt, get clarity and level up their career 

If you liked this post, you'll love my FREE weekly newsletter. 

(Link in the comments)

Repost to help others out there ♻️

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