Superhero stories: Stepping up for our customers
Each year on 28 April, the UK’s National Superhero Day honours superheroes, both real and fictional. And we’ve put together a collection of some of our Barclaycard Payments real-life superheroes. They may not have superpowers or wear capes, but they are great role models for going above and beyond their day job in support of our customers and colleagues.
The first in a three-part series of superhero stories, we speak to Terri, Leanne and Manmeet on stepping up for our customers.
Terri Stewart-Brady: Super speedy customer on-boarding
The Barclaycard Payments Digital team has invested significantly in the on-boarding experience for our customers and colleagues. This is helping make the process of businesses applying for card machines to take card payments from customers even smoother.
“To build on this process we wanted to extend this experience and capability to our colleagues in the bank who talk to business clients daily.” explains Terri Stewart-Brady, Digital Enablement Manager, “I’ve been helping train colleagues to manage those requests digitally.”
Terri has trained a high number of Barclays colleagues so far on a system called ‘Rapid on-boarding and Recruitment’, or “ROAR” for short. When a retailer submits an application, the team can give the customer a real-time decision, all done digitally without the need for paperwork; the process is super smooth and easy to use for our customers.
Leanne Allen: Supporting clients in the travel and tourism sector
COVID-19 has impacted the travel and tourism sector, with government restrictions both in the UK and internationally preventing tourism for large periods of time.
This has caused high levels of refunds where consumers have been unable to take holidays due to the restrictions. Many holidays throughout 2020 were cancelled, starting with the ski season, through the spring and summer holidays and into the December period. This has meant that travel companies have needed to understand and track all of this unprecedented refund activity. Enter stage left, the Barclays Data and Strategic Analytics (DASA) team, who were there to provide detailed data and insight to support customer’s reconciliations and financials for year-end reporting.
Leanne Allen, Head of Data Collaboration in DASA, explains: “I’ve been working with a major travel operator for many months to support them with reporting and insight on their settlement data to ensure they could reconcile their accounts.
“More and more customers are coming to us for help to better utilise data to support and develop their businesses, and as we come out of lockdown this will certainly be a powerful tool in helping our customers to grow.”
Manmeet Dhillon: Helping customers embed purchasing cards to track business spend
Manmeet Dhillon is an Engineering Manager at Barclaycard Payments. She works as part of the Engineering leadership team who deliver software solutions for our clients. The team helps customers adopt best practices when implementing any of our products, services or solutions.
“I have 15 years’ experience in the software engineering industry. Quality assurance and delivering good products through vigorous testing is a big part of it, and a lot of what we do is the back-end process to ensure a customer has the ability to settle all their acquiring needs.” said Manmeet.
One of the areas we support is purchasing cards, which support an organisation’s employees to track spend at work without having to go through the formal purchasing or accounts payable process. They use the credit card infrastructure that employees know and understand to pay on behalf of the company. Manmeet has been helping some big brands adopt the ability to take purchasing cards, which uses Smartpay technology.
One of Smartpay’s chief benefits is its ability to power fast, smooth, flexible payments. The platform supports one-click purchases and allows buyers to use a variety of different cards, currencies and payment methods.
Terri, Leanne and Manmeet’s stories left us feeling empowered and ready to see what we can do as we take on each day. Stay tuned for more superhero stories soon.