Today, most businesses utilise online payments. But business owners are less and less dealing with bank managers, and more and more with fintech companies, which facilitate payments and provide businesses with suites of online financial tools.
Olga Pozdejeva, Head of the Customer Relations Division at international service provider and direct card acquirer ECOMMPAY, which lists Yandex.Taxi, Firebird Tours, and other leading global businesses among its clients, is here to provide you with the best insight.
The creation and spread of new payment structures under the umbrella term of ‘fintech’ has led to the rise of a new kind of specialist. They’re not just client managers, they’re full-fledged business consultants in the eCommerce arena. To understand how lucky you are with one of these superheroes, direct your attention to some of their main distinguishing features.
Expertise, Extended
All the modern providers of financial services, payment solutions, insurance, and capital management grew up in small startups, where excellent client service was (and remains) part of the business model and a competitive advantage. According to a Salesforce survey, which was answered by 2600 client service specialists from various countries, 78% of B2B customers change their providers if they receive an uneven level of service. 67% of managers note that today, even one negative incident is enough to spark thoughts of changing provider.
So the main thing that makes a fintech client manager stand out is competence. A payment platform is a difficult thing to configure and maintain, and clients often require consultation to keep theirs running smoothly. A manager should not only answer questions as quickly and clearly as possible, but also be completely “on the ball”.
More precisely: they should know the ins and outs of their product thoroughly, understand the specifics of relevant national legislation, be able to explain the acquiring technologies to their client, have a handle on the most advanced algorithms for detecting and preventing internet fraud, and much more besides. In fact, every fintech client manager needs to personalise their service for every client. They’re able to hear and to help, delving immediately into the client’s problem, considering it from every angle and offering the best possible solution.
A qualified fintech client manager should be able to explain the complex stuff simply and coherently.
Communication Skills
The constant improvement and release of new products is the main feature of the fintech business. Client managers in this industry should be aware of trends, new products, competing solutions on the market, and striving to always learn new things. This doesn’t just apply to technological skills. Once, the personal managers working with VIP clients in large banks were more like professional lobbyists and party-goers. They expanded their client base through recommendations and connections and didn’t miss a single significant industry exhibition or conference.
Today, these skills are in demand once more among client managers in the fintech realm. Only, conferences these days aren’t just networking opportunities, they’re chances to receive expert training. Today’s customer service specialist should be fluent in every communication channel useful for their client, and constantly using them to search for new opportunities. For example, in the USA and western Europe, social networks -- particularly LinkedIn -- have become (with the exception of email) the main mode of interaction in the B2B sector.
In Russia, where that site is blocked, its role has been partially taken up by Facebook, but the main method for business to communicate with financial service providers remains electronic and personal correspondence. That means a good client service specialist in fintech needs not only to speak beautifully and empathetically, but also be able to conduct correspondence competently.
If you’ve seen your client manager at a fintech conference or exhibition, that’s a great sign!
The Maternal Instinct
Sincere interest in a client’s problems regardless of the time of day is an important distinguishing feature of the new breed of fintech client manager. According to Salesforce’s statistics, 82% of clients in the B2B sector consider personalised service one of the key ingredients in ensuring loyalty to providers. That means around-the-clock availability regardless of time zone or region, and the key part of an individual approach: reducing communication to interaction with a single manager.
Analytical Skills
Many prosperous fintech companies started life in specialised segments of the financial market, gradually expanding their set of technological tools and scaling up their services. ECOMMPAY used to process payments for medium-to-large companies within specific sectors just a few years ago, but now we’re successfully cooperating across the entire eCommerce sector, offering comprehensive solutions for growing businesses in most industries.
As a fintech, our client managers are able to analyse eCommerce businesses in as much detail as necessary, studying their industry, regions of operation, and prospects for growth carefully to offer tailored consultations. It helps us to be not just a payment service provider, but a real partner to our clients.
An intelligent interest in the processes of your business and a fintech client manager’s involvement are guarantees of successful cooperation._
The sphere of payment solutions is not an area where “the customer is always right” works as a universal rule. Here, the client is a partner, and the manager from a payment service provider doesn’t ‘serve’, so much as help develop the business.
The ability to successfully conduct difficult negotiations around the complexities and nuances of a service is, for a fintech specialist, much more important than the ability to sell an additional, but non-obligatory, service to the client. Merit and strategic thinking are the defining qualities of the modern fintech client manager.
