Aumni Spotlight: Building the Optimal Customer Experience with Michelle Wiles, Customer Programs Manager

In this Employee Spotlight, Aumni’s Customer Programs Manager, Michelle Wiles, discusses how she became interested in a customer success career, what excites her about Aumni, and how Aumni’s company culture aligns with her values. She also shares with us Aumni’s vision for the optimal customer experience and a must-read message for Aumni customers, present and future.

Q: How did you find yourself at Aumni? What made you interested in coming to work here?

A: When learning about Aumni, it felt like the company would be a great fit for me, for a few reasons. I had previously worked in customer success in both the fintech space and the legal space, and Aumni intrigued me with its intersection of the two. Aumni lives in that intersection and unlocks powerful data found in private capital’s fintech and legal facets. 

The startup environment thrives on energy that I enjoy. I love the opportunities for innovation found in the stages where a company is experiencing explosive customer growth. Beyond that, having worked at many startups, I have been exposed to and intrigued by venture capital from the portfolio company perspective, as it was built into all of my previous roles. Working at Aumni and supporting stakeholders across the investor community by enabling innovation has been especially inspiring and rewarding to me. ‍

Q: How did you become interested in customer success as a career? 

A:  My career began in technology recruiting at my first startup company. I loved being business-critical, but I found that I wanted to interact with the people who were buying and using the company's products. With this in mind, I found an opportunity with another very small startup -- I was the fifth employee hired -- and became the first customer-facing team member. The customer success aspect of that role was very gratifying and appealed to my desire to make a measurable contribution to product adoption and customer retention. My career in customer success took off from there.

Q: What is Aumni's vision for the optimal customer experience and how do you make this happen day-to-day?

A: We want the process to be straightforward and insightful. There's an art to balancing all of the capabilities that Aumni offers to streamline customer workflows. Finding that balance and helping customers understand all of the different data points they have access to is a big part of my role. I support them by tapping into all of the different insights available to them without overloading them with information. What we offer customers is business-critical and truly helpful for their day-to-day operations. Whether optimizing strategies in how to scale a growing fund, or managing existing fund metrics, or even metrics across multiple funds, our customers rely on Aumni to expedite and enhance their access to vital information, and that's really what we're working on every single day, with each interaction.

Q: What excites you most about the product offering at Aumni? How does it exceed the expectations of our customers? 

A: The insights discovered via our reporting functionality are a dream come true for customers. Automating and centralizing key data points and comparing them to other data points is invaluable for funds, especially when they have had to gather information from various sources before using Aumni. Many of the customers we’ve onboarded have shared the difficulties they’ve encountered in hunting down data. They’ve spent hours reaching out to multiple sources to gather data and compile that information into Excel spreadsheets. 

With Aumni, they have all of their relevant data in one place. They can access it quickly to develop new insights. They can leverage the data and take strategic action in response to it. And they can also share it with other parties, as needed. Customers who have survived a manual data analytics process personally tell us that Aumni has exceeded their expectations. 

Q: How does Aumni's company culture align with your values and interests?

A: Aumni's "no mediocrity" company-wide value resonates with me most powerfully. The Aumni team communicates and fosters the company's commitment to excellence and quality work from the hiring process forward. There's a clear appetite for sharing information and helping others. Each of us works to lift our colleagues and to ensure that our work is grounded in that shared commitment to distinction.  It's a value that I've seen in practice throughout Aumni, in every interaction.

Q: What is something surprising about you that your colleagues may not be aware of?

A: My first job in technology required me to open an office and hire 35 people in St. Petersburg, Russia. Without speaking any Russian, I found myself interfacing with job candidates, new hires, and logistical partners. I have wonderful memories of going to the Hermitage museum and going out to eat with the locals for an authentic experience with Russian cuisine. 

Q: Is there a message you’d like to share with our current and future customers? 

A: Your data will unlock insights you can use to guide your future decisions if you can trust its accuracy and access it in a meaningful way. Aumni exists today to give you early access to that future.