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In business these days, a lot of people claim to be customer-focused. But for Matteo Gamba, this isn’t a fashionable add-on. A quick look at his LinkedIn profile is all you need to understand what drives him. In a modestly worded profile, he works in ‘customer’ four times, telling us that he loves to “explore and shape digital products” for them; “solve problems” for them, “create the best possible user experiences” for them; and “always with the intent to deliver the best possible solutions” for them.
A career that began in the unforgiving competition of startups and scale-ups has taught Matteo the need, and the art, of understanding what customers want, and how to give it to them. And today, that means better payments. “Everything begins with payments,” he says. “If we ever overlook that, the rest of the customer experience falls down.”
Since 2016, Matteo has applied this passion to Wayfair, the online furniture company. Wayfair’s more than 21 million active customers around the world are the ultimate beneficiaries of his work, but that begins with what Matteo calls his “first-line customers: my colleagues.” He adds: “We need to do the right thing for the customer, but always through the lens of it also being right for the business.” So while metrics like conversion rates, chargebacks, basket size, and payment processing fees are important markers, Matteo’s primary data point is profitability. “Always know the P&L of a given payment method, and build your payment strategy around that. Ultimately, that’s what your business and shareholders are interested in.”
Building from nothing
Wayfair has been forward-looking in its approach to business and, as such, it knew before most that the payment experience needed to be localized for the territories in which it operates. This was timed with Matteo’s arrival at Wayfair. His role was clear: Move payments away from a one-size-fits-all approach. Wayfair knew that he was the right person for the job as he had a natural understanding of payments across Europe. “As a native Italian, who had lived in London and now in Berlin, I intuitively knew that people want different things from their payment experiences,” says Matteo.
At the time, Matteo had been heading up a team that was responsible for Wayfair’s international websites and apps. Wayfair recognized Matteo's customer-first mentality and his willingness to challenge the status quo, making him the smart choice to lead the company's efforts in building out a payments strategy. During this time, it was becoming evident that payments could be a lever for growth and the right team would be needed to drive its full potential. Wayfair focused on getting the right people that would be able to build this from scratch—defining the strategy, the product roadmap, and the team structure. This has set them up for ongoing success even as the payment industry rapidly evolves.
Fast forward seven years, and things have changed. Wayfair’s vision of a localized payments strategy that will drive better experiences for their customers has been realized with the help of Matteo and his team. Today, that team (including Product Managers, Engineers, BI Analysts, Designers and Business Managers) have a broad brief, including technical integrations, performance management, compliance, security and fraud, and vendor management. They have overseen BNPL adoption, the 3DS integration to answer to the PSD2 requirements, the discovery of open banking payments, and most notably, the launch of a bespoke payment orchestration platform that serves as a central resource for processing payments, reconciliation, and UX optimization.
“There’s been a lot of ‘figuring it out as we go’”, Matteo says. “But now, we’re in a place where we have the systems and the talent that will allow us to be a lot more strategic. And that’s going to let us drive a lot more value for our customers.”
But that doesn’t mean anything is set in stone. Adaption is crucial, according to Matteo. “If we have a vacancy for an engineer, we won’t just automatically fill it with a like-for-like replacement. We’ll ask if that’s still what we need in the team. In that sense we have a startup mentality; every resource counts and must be applied to the most profitable activity.”
Data, the new frontier
While fraud is something about which every online business needs to keep vigilant, under Matteo’s guidance, Wayfair is using data to successfully combat this problem. “Today, fraud flourishes because of asymmetric information between different payment rails. Some of these networks are 40 years old and they haven’t kept up with the data that is available to assess fraud. So you end up with false negatives and false positives.”
Matteo advises the payments industry should focus on two big plays. The first is facilitating information sharing between all parties in a payment chain. The second is to be more selective about where you apply fraud management. “Fraud isn’t just one thing, so applying the same fraud management rules everywhere is inefficient. Regulation, especially in Europe, has moved identity and payments closer, but within those regulations, there’s plenty of scope for how and when you apply authentication rules, so you can protect customers but also minimize friction. The industry needs to create more tools that let merchants like us control that.”
Everyone’s business
The foundations of Wayfair’s payment capabilities are well and truly laid, the next step will be to take tactical advantage of them and use them to deliver not only a better bottom line but also the best in class customer experience. “We can’t just be satisfied that payments work. A problem-free payments experience is just the start. We also need them to inspire and enable customers to buy more,” says Matteo.
To achieve that, payments must be a whole-company endeavor, he says. “There are just so many moving parts to a perfect payment experience that don’t always sit with a payments team.” The aforementioned payments platform is a perfect example of the value that comes from engaging with all stakeholders to ensure clarity of priorities and the necessary investment of time. “We set out to build a solution that supports everyone in the company, from back-end finance functionalities to a payment engine that can be used by any team to collect money from a customer.” Proactively seeking feedback was an essential part of the build. “We were always asking colleagues: ‘Is this the right thing to do?’ ‘What are we missing?’, while always framing every decision in terms of the benefit for the customer.”
That level of collaboration requires a great immediate team, explains Matteo. “In a company the size of Wayfair, collaboration takes a lot of resources, a lot of energy to keep everyone on board.” Unsurprising then, that a cooperative spirit is one of the traits he values most highly in those he manages.
New aim, same game
An ‘always-learning’ attitude is another trait that Matteo prizes. “In many ways, the payments industry is just getting going. There is a new wave of payment service providers that are democratizing payments, and giving any company access to self-service tools similar to the ones that Wayfair has built in-house. That feels like part one of the story. I think we’re now entering a new phase, the era of deep personalization. How do we build an operation that identifies the customer and serves them their preferred payment method, depending on what they are buying, and where? A super-fast, super-safe, super-profitable payments experience…that’s the next aim.”
He is right that this will be a new challenge for many businesses. But for Matteo and Wayfair, that search for the perfect customer experience is something they have been building towards for many years already.
