David Allen Krause

Operations Manager, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Audio Drama Composer

David Allen Krause

Global Customer Service Professional and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with over 26 years in operations and project management, including client support experience in fast-paced remote and in-person work environments. Emphasis on team building, relationships & leadership.  Excellent oral and written communication skills. Proven ability to reach goals. Strong organizational and analytical skills. Excellent customer service skills. Detail-oriented with logical cause and effect reasoning.

My Journey and Interests

FertilityBridge.com
2023, Operations Manager, contractor

Implemented innovative processes and tools in Asana, streamlining the planning, scheduling, and sales of sponsorships and improving the communication and coordination with journalists. Provided project management for weekly podcasts and digests.

Support.com
2022, Operations Manager
2016-2022, Associate Operations Manager
2009-2016, Manager, Quality Improvement

Created, trained, and led the Quality Improvement department based on Lean Six Sigma methodologies. Reduced handling time of the remote computer repair process by 86%. Increased quality audit scores by 10% to a consistent 95+%. Improved voice of the customer results by 5%, maintaining a 4.7 out of 5 rating. Developed a feedback-based continuous improvement process and partnered with the Engineering department to effect enhancements in tools, improving employee satisfaction. Fostered a low attrition, relationship-based remote worker environment.

Western Union
2002-2008, Senior Operations Manager / Six Sigma Black Belt
1996-2002, Operations Manager
1987-1990, 1992-1996, Customer Service Representative
Formed new departments for international money transfer customer service, U.S. government benefits payments and auction payment fulfillment including process design and technology optimization. Achieved Six Sigma Black Belt certification by leading projects totaling over $3.5M in total annualized savings, leveraging cross-functional optimization of process flows and tools utilization.

Maritz Marketing Research
1990-1992, Technical Support
Installed hardware and software in both Windows and Macintosh environments. Connected workstations to an Ethernet network, including mainframe emulation. Performed regularly scheduled backups to hard disks and tapes.


Additional Work Experience

True Adventures, Ltd
2008-Present - Player Coach and Virtual Dungeon Master for in-person and remote immersive gaming experiences

Scream-a-Geddon
2020-2022 - Interactive Scare Actor at local haunted attraction during Halloween seasons
Maryville University
1987-1991
GPA 3.865 (Magna cum laude)
Bachelor of Science
- Management Information Systems
- Accounting

First Data Corporation
2002-2006
Certifications
- Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
- Change Management
Microsoft Office
- Advanced user including Visual Basic, complex formulas, charts and reporting
- Trained peers and leaders on use of Excel
- Created SharePoint site content, integrated with Teams and Power Automate

Quality Improvement
- Application of Lean Six Sigma Approach
  • Paretos
  • Current and future state process mapping
  • Control Charts
  • FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis)
  • Histograms
  • SIPOC
  • Measurement System Analysis
  • Sampling
  • Ishikawa / Fishbone
  • - Led a team of Quality Auditors of contact center encounters
    - Developed QA methodology and scoring system

    Project Leadership
    - Cross-functional project teams
    - Kaizen events
    - Trained on running a successful project using Lean Six Sigma methodologies and tools (DMAIC/DMADV)

    Process Improvement and Documentation
    - Led development and documentation of Standard Operating Procedures
    - Streamlined internal processes and designed optimized new process
    - Created a continuous improvement feedback loop

    Teaching / Mentoring
    - Excel
    - Change Management
    - Project Management
    - Lean Six Sigma Tools

    Music Composition
    - Underscores for Internet-distributed audio dramas

    Voice Acting
    - Voice Acting for Internet-distributed audio dramas

    Scare Acting
    - Interactive scare actor at local haunted attraction (prisoner, maniac at an asylum)
    Music
    - Appreciation of modern and classic underscores to movies, television and video games
    - Composition of underscores to audio dramas
    - Perform on the piano or ocarina

    Video Games
    - Appreciation and enjoyment dates back to Atari 2600 and includes PC, Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo as well as Smart device apps.
    - Meta Quest 2 VR

    Volleyball
    - Avid indoor and outdoor player for over 30 years

    Theme Parks
    - Frequent customer to Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando - Particularly fond of water-based attractions and dark rides

    Travel

  • Aruba, Australia
  • The Bahamas, Belgium
  • Canada, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica
  • Denmark, Dominica
  • France
  • Germany, Greece (including Mykonos and Santorini), Grenada
  • Italy
  • Jamaica
  • Kiribati
  • Luxembourg
  • Mexico, Monaco
  • The Netherlands, New Zealand
  • Panama Canal, Peru (including Machu Picchu)
  • Spain (including Ibiza), St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Sint Maarten, St. Vincent, Sweden, Switzerland
  • Trinidad, Turkey
  • U.S. (37 states plus Catalina Island, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands)
  • Venezuela
  • I feel privileged to have worked with and learned from a variety of leaders and professionals in both my professional and private life. My journey is far from over as a new chapter will soon be beginning. Let me take a moment to share my journey to date. I'm originally from the St. Louis, Missouri suburbs. Unlike so many youths of the area that started their work journey at fast food restaurants, I was hired by Western Union as a customer service representative recording telegrams and money transfers. I didn't know it then, but this was an important first step on my journey to being a customer service professional.

    At Western Union, I learned a lot about interacting with the customer. What made them happy. What made them unhappy. How to diffuse a difficult customer. How to leave them satisfied with their interaction. My opportunities grew at Western Union. I moved to credit card validation and discovered ways of identifying frauds. I spent time in the customer service department where senders corrected typos or added test questions so that the payee could receive the funds with identification.

    And then, I finished my bachelor's degree at Maryville University (then Maryville College). I thought my career path was going to be a programmer or an IT administrator. I left Western Union and worked at Maritz Marketing Research in their technical support department for two years. At Maritz, I learned about Macintosh and Apple computers. I expanded my technical knowledge of Windows PCs and even mainframe terminals and networking. But, this would turn out not to be my ultimate path, although the technical knowledge I gained would aid me later on. My time at Maritz ended when they cut back the department.

    After searching for a couple of months to find another job similar to Maritz, I ended up returning to Western Union and resuming my prior role. I thought at the time it would just be a temporary step until I found something more in the IT field. Instead, though, Western Union was expanding their Will Call (real time) money transfer service to additional countries across the world and needed to create a specialized customer service team to handle any issues that arose. I was chosen to help create this department and would later be promoted to Operations Manager over that department.

    Supporting International customers expanded my horizons globally. I was exposed to other cultures, other languages and points of view. I took the opportunity to delve even more into each country's uniqueness and published a monthly newsletter, each one spotlighting a different country that Western Union serviced.

    The success of the International Department was the catalyst for my involvement in other new ventures that Western Union would begin. I launched a department that used money transfers and debit cards to help the underbanked receive their social security or SSI checks in a timely, safe manner. I would learn a lot about the banking industry and regulation E claims (regarding issues with cash withdrawals at ATMs). Next, I created a department that supported a product known as BidPay which used money orders to pay for auctions on sites such as eBay. I was even promoted to Senior Operations Manager.

    After Western Union was purchased by First Data Corporation, the next major step in my journey began. FDC had embraced Lean Six Sigma and wanted to introduce these process improvement methodologies into the Western Union culture. Through a combination of training coursework and practical application through improvement projects, I would demonstrate sufficient understanding to be certified as a Black Belt in Six Sigma. Over $3.5M in annualized savings were realized from those projects.

    However, my career at Western Union would soon end, as upper leadership chose to close the US-based contact centers. I took that opportunity to move to the Tampa, Florida area to be closer to theme parks and the person who would become my spouse. The next chapter in my story would begin there, when I was hired by Support.com as a solutions engineer (technical support agent).

    After only a month taking calls, my Lean Six Sigma background would come to the attention of leadership and a new Quality Improvement department was created. At first, I was a sole contributor, but I would soon have a team of Quality Improvement Specialists reporting into me, as well as the Quality Auditing team. Improvement projects focused on Average Handling Time, NPS Scores, first contact resolution and sales success. One of my first tasks was figuring out why diagnosing and repairing customer issues was taking so long (over 400 minutes on average versus the budgeted 55 minutes). The lowest hanging fruit turned out to be the metric computation itself. A measurement system analysis revealed that the handling time was including periods of time when no technician was actively engaged with the ticket and if more than one technician viewed the ticket simultaneously, the time would duplicate that segment in the reporting. Although it would take multiple projects to reach the desired handling time, the Quality Improvement team prevailed.

    During my time in Quality Improvement, multiple projects involved cross-function efforts including Human Resources, Operations, Engineering, Work Force Management, Finance and the partner tenants themselves. As will happen sometimes, Support.com reached a point where continuous improvement was embedded enough into the culture that a dedicated team was no longer considered necessary. At that point, I transitioned into the role of Associate Operations Manager for one of our most important clients.

    My application of Lean Six Sigma didn't end with my Operations role. Leveraging both my experience as a people leader and a continuous improvement facilitator, I fostered a relationship-based low-attrition department where feedback was encouraged, captured and coordinated with the appropriate functional groups for proper evaluation and implementation. I met weekly with our client to discuss current results and in progress projects as well as bi-weekly to calibrate with the quality auditing teams to make sure that a partnership was maintained and expectations were clear.
    SUPPORT.COM examples of accomplishments

  • Coordinated with client contacts on multiple initiatives, reporting of weekly results and monthly business reviews. Met bi-weekly to calibrate with the client and the internal quality assurance team.
  • Implemented a feedback mechanism for front line associates that identified multiple improvements in process flows, tracking and customer interaction.
  • Streamlined the Spanish Voicemail process leveraging Microsoft Flows and Teams integration.
  • Trained internal leaders and support staff on Lean Six Sigma concepts and the use of Microsoft Excel.
  • Led approximately 200 remote phone-based technical support and 10 supervisors in customer-facing solutions to computer and smart device-related issues. Customers included cable company residential and small business subscribers. Associates were able to remotely control computers and provide phone therapy.
  • Partnered with the IT department for improvement and maintenance of internally created tools facilitating enhanced tracking, improved accuracy and reductions in handling time.
  • Reduced average handling time of multiple service activities. Largest success was the reduction in Remote Malware Removal from 400 minutes to 55 minutes through Measurement System Analysis and Process Optimization which included an earlier review of Can’t Complete situations and escalation guidelines.
  • Created a balanced Agent Metric Scorecard for coaching agents to optimal results.
  • Partnered with the engineering team to improve internal and external software.
  • Managed the Quality Auditing function and Quality Improvement Specialists.
  • Trained internal team and management on Lean Six Sigma concepts and methods included the development of a Project Management toolkit.
  • Developed a Change Management process which included acknowledgment reporting.
  • Performed a deep analysis on Net Promoter Scores, including interviewing customers to learn why they rated the interaction the way that they did.
  • Established a Process Documentation process, utilizing a standardized template that included prerequisites, purpose and procedures for exceptions.
  • Presented the results of data analysis both internally and to client partners.
  • Partnered with Client Services on multiple projects related to service delivery.
  • Designed guided process paths to promote consistency between agents while capturing disposition data based on key decision points within the process.

  • WESTERN UNION examples of accomplishments

  • Generated over $1 M in cost savings through review of call transfer patterns and changes to the default destination for specific call types handled through automated voice response menus.
  • Avoided $800K in annualized cost related to the implementation of 100% call reason tracking through logical organization of selections, streamlined reasons and movement of the process into the call.
  • Removed $660K in annualized costs by outsourcing a cardholder verification process.
  • Effected $600K in annualized savings through automation of a manual process for generating and mailing transaction confirmation letters.
  • Eliminated $500K in annualized cost through improved filtering of exception items.
  • Facilitated 3 Kaizen events with representatives from various business units and corporate levels.
  • Designed and coordinated development of improved screen flows and the ability for the voice response unit to route calls and populate transaction information based on customer entry of indexed fields.
  • Defined customer service processes and managed the operation of an Internet-based payment service including email support and cardholder verification.
  • Converted an offline card verification process to an online one, reducing cycle time by more than 80%.
  • Defined customer service processes and managed the operation of card and ATM-based services, including insourcing of the enrollment process.
  • Designed processes and developed tools for an international-focused customer service department.