Costa Xynos leads the professional services team at GoCardless, a company building the world’s leading bank payment network. With a presence in over 30 countries, GoCardless supports businesses in collecting payments through bank payment systems. 

Costa’s team operates with three primary goals:

1. Accelerate onboarding: Helping customers achieve their desired outcomes with minimal disruptions.
2. Deliver a world-class experience: Laying a strong foundation for long-term partnerships with customers by offering an unparalleled experience.
3. Scale smartly: Leveraging technology and refining processes to achieve outstanding results without simply increasing headcount.

However, the tools they relied on didn’t adapt as their processes evolved. The team had to stitch together processes that were functional but far from optimized. Their workflows were tedious, manual, and prone to errors.

“We had stitched together a lot of processes that weren’t necessarily fit for purpose. While they worked, they weren’t optimized and required constant manual intervention from the team.”

Challenges Before Rocketlane

Disconnected project plans

The team juggled two separate project plans—one for internal use and another for customers, managed through bespoke spreadsheets. Keeping both aligned required constant manual effort and left room for errors.

Cumbersome reporting processes

Extracting key data from the CRM and building reports manually was not only time-consuming but also introduced inaccuracies. This limited the team’s ability to gain actionable insights.

Inaccurate time-tracking

While their previous tool supported time-tracking, it was rigid and difficult to adapt as processes evolved. The system often failed to capture accurate data, making it a cumbersome task to derive insights This made it hard to understand how resources were utilized or to scale without overburdening the team.

“The time-tracking data wasn’t 100% accurate, and when our processes changed, it was difficult to reflect that in the tool. Most importantly, reporting wasn’t as straightforward as we needed it to be.”

Life with Rocketlane

Identifying gaps, accelerating customer value

Rocketlane’s built-in reporting capabilities provided immediate value. Kosta and his team can now quickly identify bottlenecks, track project progress, and make informed decisions. The ability to see where customers were lagging enabled the team to nudge them forward, ensuring smoother implementations.

Ease of creating tailored onboarding plans

The team can now easily adapt project plans, create tasks, adjust timelines, and fine-tune processes on the fly. They’ve built onboarding templates tailored to different customer needs, ensuring a seamless experience across diverse use cases and go-to-market motions. ‍

Enhanced visibility with customer portal ‍

Customers now get direct access to their implementation projects through a dedicated portal. This transparency has been pivotal, accelerating time-to-value by 59%. Customers can escalate tasks, collaborate, and stay informed, all in one place.

Streamlined time-tracking

Timesheets, once a tedious chore, became a source of rich insights. Tracking time accurately and analyzing where it’s being spent is now effortless for the team. 

Consistent high CSAT, even as projects multiplied

Despite handling an increased volume of projects, the team maintained their high customer satisfaction scores. This was achieved by scaling through technology rather than increasing headcount, thanks to streamlined projects, and automations in Rocketlane.

“Rocketlane just works out of the box and gives me the insights I need. The hard part is figuring out the strategy. Once that’s done, executing it in Rocketlane is a piece of cake.”