Contact me: ben (at) benandjacq.com
Technical Customer Support Specialist
I specialize in training and leading teams who translate high level code knowledge into layman’s terms. Customers are subject matter experts—just not when the subject is my product. They deserve a technical support specialist who is able to resolve their problem quickly, kindly, and with the heart of a teacher. That’s what I do, and train teams to do.
Education
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies
- Academic focus on Early American Religious History
- Extracurricular activities included being president of the largest active student organization on campus
Experience
Director of Customer Service and Support
StellarWP—A Liquid Web Brand (2023–present)
I did so well with GiveWP, I was given the reins to multiple teams of Support Technicians, representing more than 1,500,000 end users: I lead the technical support for KadenceWP, Iconic, Orderable, SolidWP, and GiveWP
- Create and maintain systems for managing and monitoring support ticket capacity
- Ensure that team members are trained on tone, effective support, and technical expertise
- Foster an environment and team culture that avoids the burnout and turnover that typifies customer support
- Pioneer an environment where the development/product team treats the support team with respect
- Add in support-team-driven Quality Assurance to multiple products: it’s like erasing support tickets before they even have a chance to exist.
Ask me about taking over a product with nearly a million active installs, and a decade of negative sentiment around the technical support team, and turning it around in mere months.
Head of Support
Impress.org & Liquid Web (2020–acquisition by Liquid Web in 2021—2023)
Having done the job for 4 years, I took the challenge of teaching, coaching, and hiring the team that would carry on the legacy of top-tier support of our customers.
- Keep the team intact through acquisition (zero turnover in an industry that boasts significant turnover)
- Enhance and build upon the systems that preexisted, with razor-focus on team development and customer happiness
- Pioneer quality assurance as a function of the technical support team
- Build community between the Customer Success, Product, Marketing, and Support teams by radical focus on the humanity of customers and team members
- Maintain hugely positive brand sentiment in the marketplace
Senior Support Technician
Impress.org (Summer 2016–2020)
Empowering customers to turn their WordPress site into a donation platform.
- Provide priority email ticket-based customer support for the thousands of customers at givewp.com and impress.org
- Isolate hosting, database, file, and third-party code conflicts by cloning sites to local environments and debugging locally and remotely.
- Write and update end-user documentation for software
- Write original blog content and produce accompanying video for the marketing arm of the company
- Represent the company by speaking at conferences and events
- Cowrite the Support Manual for training new support technicians
- Write clear and compelling GitHub issues to help translate the concerns of users into actionable steps for developers.
- Provide minor bugfixes and patches to plugin and add-on code
Ask me about the Tone Guide I wrote for our support technicians.
Owner
BenandJacq Inc / WP Steward (2013–present)
Starting with small one-off web design projects, the business continues to morph into tangentially related WordPress-related products and services.
- Provide customer support for free WordPress plugins
- Secure client sites with full service hosting, backups, and maintenance
- Manage client servers with uptime monitoring, server maintenance, and SSD cloud server deployment
- Reach client objectives with PHP, HTML, CSS, and light Javascript deliverables
- Secure new clients with top-notch customer support and word-of-mouth referrals
Project Manager
Socialexis (2013–2015)
Web entrepreneur Alexis Grant brought me on as “second in command” to help with the daily running of her blogging and social media management startup. This position ended when the company was acquired by Taylor Media in 2015.
- Worked myself out of a job: delivered projects so well that the blog management arm of the company was acquired in 2015
- Interface with team of writers, editors, and social media managers to ensure quality and timeliness of deliverables
- Coordinate and manage a distributed team
- Collaborate on HR decisions and interface with third-party developers and consultants
- Help build a team of writers and editors, including hiring and firing
- Provide customer service as “Lead Overachiever” to ensure delighted customers and clients
- Provide backend tech support and server maintenance for product sales generating more than $50,000 in annual revenue
- Managing client accounts and delighting clients representing over $100,000 in annual revenue
Account Manager, Vertical Markets
Wingswept (2013)
- Placed 60-80 outbound cold-calls daily
- Sold web solutions in the fiercely anti-technology auto repair industry
In my manager’s own words: “He is an enthusiastic, intelligent, witty, tenacious, dependable, hard working individual with a great sense of humor and a high degree of integrity. If you would like more information, I will be happy to speak with you personally.”
-Doug Meeker, director of telesales
Retail And Small Business Sales Consultant
AT&T (2011–2012)
- Received Q2 2012 Service Excellence Gold Award for being in top 4 percent of all sales reps in the Carolinas
- Received Q4 2011 Service Excellence Silver Award for being in top 13 percent of all sales reps in the Carolinas
- Received AT&T Small Business 2.0 Certification for closing high revenue business to business sales, becoming one of three certified reps in my location
- Received promotion from part-time to full-time in fewer than 60 days after completing training, based on performance and attitude
- Clocked in early or on time for every single shift
- Provided customers with personalized solutions to complex problems and opportunities, while maintaining a positive attitude in an extremely pressurized retail environment
- Consistently exceeded coworker and supervisor expectations with regard to work ethic and positive attitude
- Positively affected customer opinion of a multi-billion dollar corporation, by consistently listening to and responding appropriately to customer issues
Partner
Starbucks Coffee Company (2010-2011)
- In under a month, (while still learning the system) became the highest selling partner in a special promotion of VIA, a new Starbucks instant coffee, selling through a drive-through window
- Created a fun work environment by volunteering for the jobs nobody else wanted and doing them with a smile
- Consistently exceeded customer and supervisor expectations in enthusiasm and quality results, both in sales and customer service
In my manager’s own words: “Ben is far and away the best partner that we have here when it comes to engaging with our customers. When Ben is on the floor I feel very confident that none of our customers will leave with anything less than an above average experience. Ben is one of the better partners I have ever come across in my years with Starbucks”
Campus Minister
Campus Crusade for Christ (2002-2010)
- Raised over $400,000 to cover salary, benefits, and ministry expenses from individuals and churches (using a 30-minute interactive sales presentation with a referral ask, a financial ask, and followup)
- Worked in multiple ministry settings in 2 states, dealing with students in small schools (300 or fewer students) and students from larger schools (22,000 or more students)
- Developed and managed an online ministry presence geared toward college students using traditional online media in addition to trying out these new-fangled “social media” solutions.
- Pioneered the online presence of an established conference for 1,000+ students from a 5-state area, using live blogs, Ustream.tv broadcasts, and facebook groups. (7,000+ Pageviews, 1,900+ Unique Visitors)
- Trained and managed student leaders and volunteers in effective use of social media for ministry, effective social interaction, spiritual disciplines, time management, conflict resolution, delegation, critical thinking, and many other life skills
- Led and coached the leaders of music teams of various sizes for dozens of events and conferences
- Experienced international culture (in both Europe and Asia)
Plugin Development
Better Click To Tweet
Creates styled tweetable quote-boxes using the WordPress Shortcode API
Translation-friendly, simple, and 5-star reviewed. Pay special attention to the quick turnaround on updates, and the raving reviews.
- 41 five-star ratings
Downloaded a total of 609,106 times.
Old Post Date Remover
Removes the dates from old posts while leaving it on new ones
- 12 five-star ratings
Downloaded a total of 85,349 times.
Theme Development
BenandJacq.com
Custom child theme
This résumé page as well as all the content on the site is built atop a custom child theme based off of the default twenty ______ theme that ships with WordPress. If you poke around enough, you’re bound to find some easter eggs.