Experiences at Expedia

IT Agile Development

Responsible for integrating and transforming previously diverse teams into a distributed world class operations team; Developing and delivering enterprise technology services to all of Expedia, Inc; Providing technical and organizational leadership to geographically dispersed third tier technical support teams; Planning and forecasting operational and capital budgets.
* Consolidated previously disparate operational budgets for substantial annual savings. Contributed to overall annual savings of more than $13 million.
* Drove initiatives to improve operational processes and controls. Eliminated potential deficiencies, helping to ensure the successful outcome of company's Sarbanes-Oxley compliance audit....

Directed the teams chartered with deploying and supporting eCommerce web sites, applications and business reporting infrastructure for all Expedia.com Points of Sale worldwide. Responsible for meeting performance and availability SLAs of Expedia's eCommerce environments.
* Led cross-team initiative to improve stability and service levels of a critical ecommerce environment. Identified and isolated chronic issues responsible for missed SLAs and substantial loss of revenue; Drove short-term and intermediate solutions, reducing revenue loss by more than $1M and improving service availability by approximately 3%.
* Identified factors responsible for poor Render Quality metrics in key European Points of Sale; Drove fixes which improved service levels by as much as 10% and exceeded established SLAs....

Achievements:
- Negotiated new process with the QA org to reduce the overall test execution time by 25% and reduce the number of resources needed to "Accept" a "development build" by 15%.
- Effective planning and communication with the QA org resulted in shortening the "site shunt" windows during "Release to Web" phase by 5%. This amounted to saving approximately $135,000 in Gross Bookings.
- Helped re-define and simplify the 'Live Site issues' (HotFixes) test process for the entire company. Conducted detailed HotFix training for the Test Org.
- Used MS Excel to analyze the test metrics and used the results to increase the efficiency of the overall test effort in a given product Release cycle.
- Mentored new-hires on the Team.
- Promoted within 6 months of joining the team....

Understanding the data usage models for the Air product was really challenging. I had to map the data usage statistics to events occurring in the Industry. For instance, sudden spike in Airline bookings and underlying message flow during September was related to a promotional fares set in place by a major airline....

Achievements:
- Participated in analysis of large-scale projects and deployment of new and existing systems and services on the eCommerce platform.
- Business owner for various recurring reports related to system scalability, capacity, budget and planning.
- Identified opportunities for growth and improvements through insights grounded in data analysis, which could have resulted in better contractual agreements with specific suppliers.
- Worked with internal customers, external partners, planning, and forecasting groups to determine the e-commerce business process requirements.
- Automated report generation by writing Excel macros using VB script.
- Wrote ecommerce related documentation and procedures to continually improve internal process and maximize efficiencies....

Efficient and proficient in qualifying, and booking, the customer in order to make their experience as easy as possible. Consistent top performer in an in-bound call, commissioned, sales environment. Adept at website navigation both on company's website, and other's, to best service the customer and aid in their booking needs....

Engaged in a program management role providing executive oversight to assess current state of key operational initiatives and measure their progress against baseline business requirements.
Also engaged in a project management role leading the development and execution of new Customer Operations initiatives for a high-value customer support channel and an e-mail based customer contact capability....

Provided coaching for agents within all levels of the Traveler Advocacy Group including Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3(Executive Customer Service).

Responsible for random quality assurance monitoring for all agents of the Tier 3 group, including monthly audits of agents resolved cases.

Worked with World Wide Product Development to ensure that all website releases met with Customer Operations standards and expectations.

Resolved the highest level of escalations received by the CEO and President of Expedia North America offices. Reported finding after complete investigation of these cases to the CEO and President Offices.

Approved payout amounts of up to $2000.00 as applicable for retention purposes.

Managed workload for the Traveler Advocacy Group and assigned duties to a staff of 70+ agents as directed by Senior Management.

Managed case load for Research, Service and Operations divisions within the Traveler Advocacy Group department.

Monitor and report all technical and support related trends in the business to the process excellence team and site optimization teams.

Conduct team meetings to review current trends, relay new company wide directives and advice Tier 1, 2 and 3 agents on new company initiatives.

Assist Team Supervisors with investigations into agent productivity and agent concerns.

Handling Attorney General Complaint cases within 10 days of receipt of these cases from all State AG offices.

Assign duties to Tier 1, 2 and 3 agents to ensure company SLA's are met and follow up with agents on work assigned to verify resolution has been reached with the customer or vendor....

Manage and coordinate the direction for Virtual Tours
Oversee the day to day activities of photo editing and client issues
Determine direction for next generation virtual tours
Coordinate with worldwide hotels and photographers for international shoots