3 Lessons Learned from Opening Petal’s Operations Center

Like many of you, I’ve been working from home for the past couple of weeks as part of our company’s efforts to practice social distancing. I’ve used this time to reflect on my proudest accomplishments at Petal and I wanted to share a particular feat from last year which was a defining project for myself — and for Petal overall.

One of my most gratifying moments at Petal was the opening day of our Richmond, Virginia Operations Center — internally, we call this site “RVA”. As Tom Greco, the VP of Customer Operations and former Operations leader at Green Sky and Capital One, welcomed the founding team of 11 Service and Operations professionals, he shared his long-standing dream of opening up “your not-so-average” contact center and waxed poetic about the critical importance of their roles as Petal’s front-line to our customers. The energy in the room was palpable: Tom was bursting with pride; the new class members were inspired by our mission and belief in “Do[ing] right by the customer”; and I was on the sidelines, marveling at how much we’d accomplished in a mere three months.

Opening day was April 29, 2019, and on February 1, 2019, I was asked to join the team tasked with getting our Operations team up-and-running, including but not limited to: securing office space in RVA; hiring our 11 founding team members; figuring out all software/hardware and networking needs; and developing a packed, two-week onboarding schedule. I was accountable for the sourcing, interviewing, assessment, and hiring of the new team. That’s right, the challenge would be for me to recruit a team that would be located 350 miles away in Richmond, and composed of members from a totally unfamiliar candidate pool. And I’d be in New York. With access to very limited recruiting tools.

Oh, and one more thing: I was brand new to being a fully dedicated Talent Acquisition Associate. Cue *sweat_smile* emoji.

By now, you might be wondering why — given how important the Customer Operations team would be to our success — the Petal leaders would ask me to lead the recruiting effort. That’s the beauty of working at a startup (or maybe it’s just Petal 😉): you are often put into roles that initially feel impossible, until you do it. Tom and my manager, Sue, had a confidence in me that I didn’t have in myself. They saw that I possessed the intrinsic skills and grit to get the job done. In previous roles I had shown that I was “customer-centric”, highly empathetic, ultra-organized, and attentive to details. But this project took all the ingenuity, scrappiness, and coordination I had ever had to muster through my career.

With the chance to build out RVA, I came away with a number of lessons learned that I believe are applicable to anyone facing a seemingly-impossible task:

• Borrow lessons from those with expertise. Startups are known for not showing deference to the status quo, and Petal is no different…when it comes to our business model and customer value proposition. However, it doesn’t always make sense to reinvent something as tried and true as Operations or Contact Center work, so we brought onboard an experienced pro who had deep expertise in building and scaling that function.
• Trust your gut and follow your company values. Everyone, regardless of experience level, has something to teach. I found that my “superpower” was people-reading and imparting Petal’s culture and values to skeptics.
• Hard work and openness to experimentation are the most reliable assets to overcoming any new challenge. It doesn’t matter whether you are working at a startup or an established institution: achieving “the impossible” is only possible if you think differently and are willing to put in the effort required.

Borrow lessons from those with expertise

Tom Greco, the VP of Customer Operations, had joined us a few months earlier to help lead the new function and location. He was our map and compass throughout the journey; he knew exactly what it would take to make an Operations team run like a well-oiled machine and I was prepared to soak up all the knowledge I could from him.

Our first challenge was to establish the profiles of the different roles we were looking to hire, which included Customer Support Reps, Credit Operations Analysts, Complaints Escalations Specialists, a Training Manager, and a Workforce Manager. This felt daunting to me, as I had never hired for a Contact Center. In fact, I’d never worked in the Fintech space! But Tom was there, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with me as we sifted through thousands of applications and résumés, and teaching me exactly what background and experience our ideal candidates should have: what a great career progression looked like in Operations; which departments at our competitors we wanted to target; and which other local contact centers were known for their rigorous training methodologies.

On those fundamental job skills, we didn’t disagree. After all, Tom had built these types of teams many times in the past and knew what he was doing. However, when it came to homing in on culture fit and profiles I felt would thrive in a startup environment, we didn’t see eye to eye.

There were some vigorous, fruitful debates about what was more important: big corporate experience vs. startup chops and how to assess candidates against our Petal values. Nevertheless, we both envisioned an environment where each employee was empowered to raise their ideas, even objections; where they were resourceful and scrappy instead of relying solely on existing tools and protocols; where they could serve the needs of the customer even under unforeseen circumstances.

Through all of these discussions, we were able to establish a very clear set of criteria to help us review résumés efficiently and start getting on the phone with the most relevant and talented candidates. While I wanted to fully lean on Tom for his expertise in all things related to hiring his team, I also knew I had a different type of expertise to add: knowing specifically what made Petal’s culture tick. Which leads me to the next lesson learned…

Trust your gut and follow your company values

Though I didn’t have years of Operations experience or even much Talent Acquisition experience, I have been told by managers again and again that I possess a contagiously positive attitude and am a good judge of character. I also have a background in working for startups of different sizes and stages and had a foundational idea of what it takes to build out a strong team — in other words, I’ve got the “nose” for identifying scrappy, resourceful people with high potential. With my background in startups, and a deep understanding of our Petal values, I was able to really impart this excitement to our candidates throughout the journey.

This “superpower” came out as we wrapped up an exhausting — yet rewarding — interview process. We had met dozens of candidates, and it was time to deliberate and select who we wanted to join our founding RVA class. The usual disagreements continued around which candidates had the most relevant experience, demonstrated true passion for Petal’s mission and values, and possessed a general “rolling up your sleeves” attitude. I was there to advocate for the folks who may not have been perfect fits necessarily, but who I knew would work hard, thrive in building something “different,” and exhibit passion about being part of our dynamic and inclusive culture.

While I was successful in convincing Tom of my views, I had another tough customer to convince: the RVA candidates themselves. Even though they were tactful about asking me, “Is Petal a legitimate company?”, it was obvious to me that they had some doubts. Almost all had never heard of Petal. And I had to tell them the truth: “We don’t have an office space, you will be interviewing out of a nearby hotel, most of the interviewers are from our NY headquarters, but we are so excited to have you potentially join us!”

My job was to convince these folks, many with stable jobs, to take that leap of faith to join us. I focused on telling them about our mission and values, because that’s what truly distinguishes us from other local employers. I mastered the art of getting candidates excited about joining a mission-driven, rapidly growing startup, and that this could be a great next step for their careers. I emphasized how this was a unique opportunity to help build a team from the ground up, and to get in on the ground floor. This team would be able to manifest our values in all the work they would do: create new Petal norms and processes; “Simplify” our existing ones; “Find a way, together”; and best of all, “Do right by the customer”.

Hard work and openness to experimentation are the most reliable assets to overcoming any new challenge

There were many times during those months when I felt discouraged and overwhelmed. The looming deadline of April 29th haunted me, as I sifted through hundreds of résumés each week. Particularly frustrating were our initial phone screens: in the thick of it, I was averaging about 10–12 calls a day, including a surprising number of “ghosted” calls. At the end of some weeks, I left the office convinced that our efforts would be futile. But by Monday, I was certain our RVA founding team members would be among the calls I had to make that day. And whenever I spoke to a candidate who “got it” — who had done some research on Petal, was excited about what we were doing, and clearly had passion and talent for Customer Service — I was reinvigorated.

Grit and perseverance kept me going. But I also needed to experiment and think in new ways.

One such instance was coming up with a way to organize the final round interview process. This would be when we would meet the candidates in person for the first time and make job offers on-the-spot. The challenge was this: we had several days to fit 30 interviews, train 8 of us to follow the structured interviewing process, add welcoming touches to the soulless hotel conference room we were using for the interviews, and devise a decision methodology.

Although we had never done anything like this before, we were inspired by the notion of “speed-dating” interviews: this meant coordinating with the 30 candidates and fitting them into a tight schedule; determining how candidates could showcase their presentations (an assignment we required for the Training Manager role); booking space at the hotel while being super cost-conscious; and lots of advance printing (signage, résumés, interview feedback forms, interview questions, and schedules); and so. much. more.

There were no pre-existing rules, no right or wrong, which empowered me to try out new processes and see what worked and what didn’t. These lessons have since been refined and reapplied to subsequent classes of RVA staff.

Fast-forward to today, I can say with confidence that we’ve followed through on our recruiting promises with the RVA team. We’ve doubled that 11-person team to a team of 22. We’ve moved from an interim co-working space to a custom-renovated office that can fit over 90 team members. There have been new roles added in the areas of Compliance, Fraud, and Quality Assurance. Several members of the original team have stepped into leadership roles already; we’ve celebrated 8 promotions and 2 lateral moves into new functions. The vibe in RVA is one that celebrates individual and team accomplishments, and is empowered to handle the toughest challenges.

It’s been moving to see the transformation of so many team members that I met as strangers just a year ago and whom I consider friends today. They have each grown into their roles and now exhibit natural ease and authentic confidence. Petal gave them a chance, just like Petal gave me the opportunity, to push ourselves and grow to our fullest potential. I can’t wait to see what more the RVA team can accomplish and how they will continue to truly “Do right by the customer.”