“A strong understanding of data and how to look at it, is an absolute must.”

Discover our Qonto Insiders of the month: Anton Immel, Lead Customer Success at Qonto.

1. What did you do before joining Qonto (your education, professional experience etc.)?

I originally studied Mathematics and Physics at RWTH Aachen in Germany. After I graduated from university in 2016, I relocated to Barcelona and pretty much immediately wound up taking on a job as a Customer Service Specialist at Booking.com. This was originally intended to be a temporary gig while I was supposed to look for something related to my studies, but when does life ever go as planned, right?

I ended up loving the vibe of the company, the people and the opportunities to grow and learn. Three promotions and six years later I felt ready to take on a new challenge, which is exactly when Coralie from Qonto contacted me on LinkedIn. The rest is history.

2. Why did you join Qonto?

It was an exciting opportunity for me to join Qonto because I was looking to learn new things, so what would be a better way to do just that than joining a scale-up in a sector that I had zero experience in?

It didn’t hurt either that the company’s presence on social and professional media strongly suggested Qonto to be a place where success was bound to happen. The fact that the company was rather young and in hypergrowth excited me too. I just felt joining Qonto meant being able to be involved in something cool, so I went for it.

3. How would you summarize the recruitment process?

Long, but worth it. I had 4–5 interviews and a skill test to solve. The planning, communication and execution was impeccable, so even though it was quite a hefty process, we were done within only a week or so.

A welcome side effect of the extensive process was that I really felt that I was getting to know the company and its culture quite well and with each interview my confidence that I would soon be a Qontoer grew.

4. What stood out for you about your onboarding process?

I was positively in love with the fact that the onboarding takes you through the whole company and all its departments. In my previous job I was trained on matters relevant to my department, the rest I wasn’t concerned with and I always felt that we would be so much more successful if we just knew more about what our colleagues did and collaborated with them more. The onboarding at Qonto showed me that this is in the company’s DNA, which I am absolutely living for.

Also, I was given the opportunity to go on site in Paris to learn the ropes. I appreciate what an effort it must be for the company to organize this for new joiners and I’m happy that Qonto takes on this challenge with flying colors.

5. Tell us about what you do at Qonto.

My responsibility as Customer Success Lead Onboarding 🇩🇪 in the simplest of terms would be to ensure that our German customers are onboarded in the fastest and smoothest way possible. And not only do we want to onboard them fast, we also want to onboard as many as we can. As this goal is coherent with what the ‘Win Germany’ initiative intends to achieve, we often work closely with Growth and collaborate on initiatives to make our mark there.

The crux is that the bigger the variety of customers we want to onboard, the more difficult it becomes to remain compliant in what we do. In order to mitigate this, we work in constant collaboration with Legal & Compliance. Lastly, a big chunk of what my team does is to ensure quality and continuous process improvement in the way our front-line service provider Webhelp onboards new customers.

6. What are the qualities required to be a successful CS Onboarding Lead?

Since we are working a lot with metrics, a strong understanding of data and how to look at it effectively is an absolute must in my role. Another important one is the ability to communicate in an organized manner and to make sure that change is adopted effectively on our service provider’s end.

Lastly, and this is probably true for every people management role, it’s my responsibility to create an environment in which my team can thrive professionally, grow their knowledge, expand their skill set and become proactively involved in taking our product to the next level.

7. What has been your biggest challenge since you joined?

Probably my first business trip to Webhelp Cairo earlier this year after about only two months of having joined Qonto. In my previous roles, I hadn’t ever been able to make any similar experience, so this was uncharted terrain for me. To add to the pressure, the trip needed to be shorter than planned due to unfortunate flight cancellation, so making it a successful experience didn’t seem like an easy thing to do.

Luckily, the treatment from Webhelp was impeccable, and once there, things couldn’t have gone better. I was able to learn first hand how the team in Cairo takes care of our customers’ onboarding and could gain valuable insights that would support my team in our ongoing initiatives to improve our approach.

8. You are German and chose to work from Spain. How did you come to this way of life?

I already lived in Barcelona for a year in 2012–13, while I was studying abroad at the Universtitat Autònoma de Barcelona in the context of the ERASMUS program. It just so happened that I not only fell in love with the city, but with a local too and ended up in a long-distance relationship for a while, since I had to return to Germany for my studies. When I graduated in 2016, I decided to relocate to Barcelona permanently to be with my partner. We ended up separating, but my love for Barcelona lived on and I decided to stay here. No regrets so far and the tapas are great, too.

9. Why did Qonto open a CS Hub in Barcelona? Can you tell us more about its purpose?

I believe this was our COO Jordi’s baby, so if you want the full origin story, you’ll know who to ask. In a nutshell though: Barcelona is and has been for many years now a magnet for tech start-ups and therefore attracts a lot of young and bright professionals from all over Europe and beyond. The idea was to tap into this market of abundant talent and to gradually establish the location as the center of our Ops department.

We have continuously welcomed new Qontoers over the previous weeks and months here in Barcelona and are about to outgrow our current office soon. It’s exciting to be a part of something that you can see growing right in front of your eyes.

10. Which of Qonto’s 4 values (Ambition, Mastery, Teamwork, Integrity) resonates with you the most and why?

I’d say Mastery. I’m the type of person who when they do something tend to do it at 120% and if I want something to be perfect, then I’ll move mountains to try and make it so. It rarely actually is though because no matter how good something may turn out, there is always something that you could have done better. And the next time you do it, your job is to just do that.

It sounds cheesy, but I truly believe that mistakes are inevitable and necessary in order to become better. Sometimes they’re small, other times they’ll be colossal and that is okay. What matters is how you deal with them and what you learn in the process.

11. If you could speak to potential future Qonto candidates, what would you tell them?

I’d tell them that Qonto is a truly great place to work. Everyone I have met so far has been supportive and willing to contribute to our collective success. The Qonto Way is a refreshing mindset and if you want to be part of a solution-oriented environment, this is the right place for you.

It of course doesn’t come without its challenges. Keeping up with our fast-paced growth is no cakewalk, but we take it step by step and we don’t shy away from head-on tackling problems, because that’s what we do.

12. Do you have a fun anecdote you would like to share about your time at Qonto?

I’m not sure my anecdote is either fun or rather embarrassing, but after only one week at Qonto, I managed to bathe my Mac in water inside my backpack. It was still operational and the one and only thing you want to do to an electronic device that has just been splashed — turning it off — wouldn’t work. I brought it immediately to our IT paramedics and they applied first aid, but I never knew if they were able to save the patient. I got handed a replacement device and left.

Since then I never carry drinks inside my backpack anymore if I have my Mac with me. It’s been working out so far, my new device is still alive and well, but I’m now thirsty more often.