“At Qonto, our ambition is our guiding light into constant improvement.”

Discover our Qonto Insiders of the month: Tannia Rojas Quiroga, Team Lead Customer Success at Qonto.

1. What is your background before you started at Qonto? (Studies, professional experiences etc)

Born and raised in Ecuador, I moved to Spain to earn Law and Business Administration licenses. I then spent a year in Italy, with the Erasmus program. And after my graduation, I moved to France “to learn a little bit of French”. But 7 years later, I still live in Paris, and even consider myself a happy Parisian.

Professionally, I have always been involved in customer relations, I love how impactful our actions are both for the company and for its clients. I’m very quality oriented, and I believe clear standards are key to achieve the highest scores while providing the greatest customer experience. When I learned this fitted Qonto’s valuesI knew it was a match!

I was looking for a more transversal organization. In my previous experiences, all teams were mostly working vertically, which added plenty of filters and time to any decision making process. In operations that’s just a waste of resources and an important pain point for the clients.

2. Why did you join Qonto?

I was looking for a change in that direction when I found Qonto’s website. I learned about the project and the company’s values. Not only these are meaningful. Their definition and approach was really inspiring and I knew that was the work style I was looking for.

3. What aspect from your recruitment process impacted you the most?

The recruitment process made me realise how invested Qonto is in the people.
After the “typical” recruiter and direct supervisors interviews, as well as the skills test, I also had the opportunity to meet my future supervisor and the Head of People. I got to know the people I would be working with a little bit better (and vice versa), as well as the company’s culture, organization and general atmosphere.

Today the candidates meet also a peer from their future team. This process helps all parties find out if there’s a real match.

4. What moment stood out from your onboarding at Qonto?

Every team was involved in it, the founders included!
All the new joiners were invited to a presentation from the different team, and the People’s team prepared all the necessary documentation in addition to a few other sessions for us to get to understand the company’s dynamics.

My team’s dedicated onboarding was designed in a way that I got to understand my role and what was expected from me rapidly and efficiently, and all my peers were super enthusiastic and welcoming.

5. Tell us about what you do as Team Lead Customer Service.

I’m responsible for the Customer Success team in charge of International markets. We make sure our clients from Italy, Germany and Spain have the smoothest onboarding, and the best user experience with their Qonto accounts possible.

This role implies I have to make sure there’s a clear distribution of the tasks to be fulfilled, and that my team members have the right tools and training they need to complete them.

In addition, at Qonto, every manager is responsible for their team’s personal and professional development. Initially there are side by side learning sessions, focused on completing their training, which gradually become problem-solving., During these sessions, we apply a method designed to perfect their autonomy in auto-quality, their efficiency (at handling flow and rhythm) and their capacity in launching continuous improvement initiatives that can be service and/or product related.

Finally, the Lead is a sort of “coach” for their team. We have to make sure our scopes are taken into consideration across departments. I participate in cross-functional sessions where I raise specific feedback and needs linked to my markets’ specificities.

6. What are the qualities required to be a successful Team Lead Customer Service?

It might sound redundant, but, to me, the main quality is as simple as being able to take the lead. If I want my team to perform in a certain way, I have to lead by example. And if I want them to make our clients live the Qonto values through their experience, I also have to make my team embody them everyday in their work.

7. How would you summarize your day-to-day life as part of the Ops — CS International team?

1. Alignment through communication. I have daily debriefs with my team, and weekly meetings with others so we get and provide visibility on common projects. There’s constant feedback in both directions in order to get aligned.

2. Constant improvement through problem solving. We have the right and the obligation to constantly detect and raise red flags, related to our own performance or that of the product or our service. These flaws are to be treated efficiently and this way avoided in the future.

8. What has been your biggest challenge and/or greatest success as Team Lead Customer Service?

Our product is in constant evolution, and both our client’s portfolio and our teams are in constant growth. For this reason I’m challenged to make sure my team is staffed adequately, all my peers are up to date with the new features and related procedures, and that they respond to our users’ needs. This way, all our clients’ expectations are covered in proper time and manner, while maintaining a great team mood.

International client’s have granted us great customer satisfaction scores, and my team testifies awesome engagement towards the team and the company. So, I can proudly say that today we succeed at it, and the constant challenge is to keep it up!

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

Surprisingly I chose ambition. This is not a value that spoke a lot to me in the past, it’s very often implied as something negative and mostly linked to greediness.

But, at Qonto, our ambition is our guiding light into constant improvement. We don’t want to be another good finance solution a lot of people like, or have a nice customer service many appreciate; we won’t stop improving because we want to be the finance solution ALL businesses LOVE. 💜

10. If you could speak to future Qonto candidates, what would you say?

We might not be a startup anymore, strictly speaking, but we maintain that culture, its dynamism and the same scalability.

As part of our team, you’ll be able to grow with the project, while also having a responsibility on this. So, if you’re a hands-on team worker, an out-of-the box thinker and a true problem solver, we might be a good match for you. 😉

11. Do you have a fun anecdote you would like to share about your first days at Qonto?

Our founders definitely know how to party and have fun with the team! I personally first found out during our “Summer party” which took place on a “péniche” navigating the Seine river. It was so refreshing to see Alex and Steve having fun with the team and not taking themselves too seriously.

Originally published at https://qonto.com.