It’s a Chimed Life: Meet Martha Martinez, a Senior Vendor Manager
Whenever she introduces herself, Martha Martinez always mentions that she’s married and she and her wife recently welcomed their first child — a baby boy — to their family. “I made a commitment early on to never be in the closet at work,” Martha says. Growing up in a more conservative country, Mexico, her commitment wasn’t something to take lightly. “It’s even more important to me — because of where I’m from and where I live — to be out at work and set an example for people who might feel trepidation about being open about their sexuality or gender identity at work,” she says.
In Martha’s role as a Senior Vendor Manager, being out isn’t just about being herself around her fellow Chimers, it’s also about interacting with vendors who work with and represent Chime, too. “Because many of our vendors interact with Chime’s members, it’s crucial to share our values and company culture with them so they can communicate with members in a way that’s aligned with our core principles,” Martha explains.
In her role, Martha manages the KPIs and results that Chime vendors are responsible for achieving. She oversees the relationship with vendors, implements strategies to achieve joint goals, and helps ensure that teams are on track to hit their KPIs. Some examples of the KPIs she manages include response times for member service agents, average call length, and member satisfaction levels. She also oversees the quality of care that members receive, which involves security, following due process, and providing members with the best support we can.
“Working with vendors helps us achieve scale and support our members how they want and need to be supported without the overhead of hiring hundreds of agents right now,” she explains. “By having Chimers like myself work closely with our vendors, we can ensure the quality of service and alignment between internal Chimers and external parties like our BPOs.”
A love of customer service
Martha was in college when she got her first job working in customer service. She enjoyed it so much that she moved into another role as a tech support analyst after finishing her degree. In less than six months, she was promoted and soon took on a leadership role managing a team. “I loved — and still love — how dynamic the customer service industry is,” she says. “There’s never a dull moment because there are always new people, processes, and customers to interact with.”
Later in her career, Martha managed several contact centers, working to help the client culture trickle down to call center agents who were interacting with customers. “It’s so important for a company’s culture to trickle down into their BPO vendors,” she says. “When a call center agent feels like part of the culture of the company they’re representing, they provide a better service to customers and are more likely to stay in their jobs,” she adds.
When Martha decided that she wanted to be on the client side of BPOs, she found Chime. “I was looking to work on the other side of the vendor relationship and wanted to work for a company whose mission and culture were aligned with my personal values,” she says. “I love how Chime challenges the paradigms of fintech and that our business model supports our mission.”
Imbuing company culture throughout
When members talk to a member services representative, it’s typically because something is wrong with their account. “Someone might notice a charge they don’t recognize or be missing a deposit they were expecting on their account,” explains Martha. “They’re talking to an agent about something very important to them: their money.”
That’s the crux of why helping our third-party vendors understand the critical nature of Chime’s work: Agents must show empathy and understand the sense of urgency with which members are contacting Chime. “It’s so important that we empower our agents to feel like they’re part of Chime because they’re representing us,” Martha says. “To do that, I focus on sharing our culture and values with our teams, as well as creating an inclusive and welcoming environment with all of our vendors.”
After all, the teams Martha helps oversee are often the only contact a member will have with Chime — so they must embody our organization.
To help imbue our company culture into our vendors, Martha organizes training sessions, fun activities, prizes, and resources for them to learn about Chime. “For example, we reward our top performing agents with Chime swag — it encourages them to provide a great service and instills a sense of pride that they’re representing Chime,” she says.
“I also just show up as myself, every day,” she says. “Setting an example of being yourself at work is one of my favorite Chime values — Be Human — and it’s a great way to connect with and encourage others to do the same.”
Whether she’s introducing herself and mentioning her wife or hosting a team event for a third-party vendor, Martha’s focus is always on inclusivity and how to get Chime’s culture and values to trickle down to everyone we work with, so that our teams and our members have a truly Chimed experience every time.
