Meet Gemma, our Head of Customer Ops!

What were you doing before you joined Freetrade?

I was working at Snap Inc — as the Operations Manager for the business and community support teams. That meant supporting all the businesses that advertise on the Snapchat platform, as well as millions of their app users. The two teams I managed delivered quite different support styles for the different audiences, so it was a very diverse role.

Before that, my background was actually in advertising support and program management for Google’s Adwords business. So also managing large-scale user support was a big shift.

Why did you join Freetrade?

It’s always a jump to switch from somewhere very established to a smaller company. Moving from somewhere massive like Google to Snap was a big change in itself, but this is another level!

I wanted to work somewhere I could have a huge impact and build something from the ground-up within a truly exciting company.

I also thought Freetrade was perfect for me, as someone who’s new to investing. I really identify with the mission of opening investing to everyone.

How important is customer ops to a tech business?

Hugely important. I’m over-passionate about customers. It frustrates me if there’s anything I can’t do for them. It’s so important to build customer centricity into your strategy from the outset.

Customer support touches every area of the business so it’s our job to be the advocate for the user. There’s actually a lot of alignment with product management there.

It was great to see that Viktor and Adam already consider world-class customer support to be central to the platform.

What do you think of the current customer experience in finance?

Let’s not beat around the bush — it’s poor!

For a lot of finance companies, it’s an afterthought or a cost base. Some companies are trying to enhance the experience through technology, such as chatbots or other tactics, but really it’s more about the culture and the people within your company.

Does everyone there truly, truly care about their customers? Or just their numbers?

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What are your plans for our customer operations department?

Hiring! Luckily it looks like lots of people want to work here.

We also need to build out our processes and metrics to make sure we can scale, while keeping our great customer reputation.

I’m also looking to integrate more customer feedback into our product pipeline. And then there’s international expansion to reckon with.

So not much! 🙃

Which questions do our customers ask the most?

The biggest ones are:

1. How long do I have to wait for access?
2. Lots of questions about the info and requirements for ISAs, since we’ve just launched them.
3. And, of course, the timeline for US stocks.

Are you an investor too — what’s your style?

I’m fairly new to investing. There are a couple of stocks I’m interested in — Greggs is one. I like companies that have a clear, durable business.

Aside from talking to our awesome customers, what are the best bits of working at Freetrade?

The people — because we’re all so passionate about what we’re doing. We all want to do the best for our customers. People are everything to me at a company.

And you know you’ve got a good team when they rock these jumpers.

We’re on a mission to bring fee-free investing to Europe and beyond. 🔥