Ensuring that payments run smoothly on Mable requires a lot of work behind the scenes.
This is where Warren, one of our Senior Product Managers, comes in. He and his team are currently giving Mable’s payments engine a big makeover, making it smoother and more efficient.
We sat down with Warren to chat about what his team is working on, where they’re headed, and even what he gets up to when he’s not deep in the world of payments.
Can you please tell us a bit about your role at Mable as a Senior Product Manager?
“My main role is to make sure Mable’s payment system is simple and reliable for our community to use.
I spend my time listening to support workers and clients to figure out what’s not working or could be improved when it comes to payments. I also work closely with our tech and support teams to fix payment related issues or explore opportunities.
By making the payments side of things easy and stress-free, we help everyone focus on what truly matters.”
How big is your team and what roles make it up?
“The Payments Squad is made up of 8 people. We’ve got software engineers who create solutions to payment-related problems or opportunities, and a product designer who helps us understand and create solutions that address user experience problems and challenges.
Our team is also supported by a quality coach who helps ensure we deliver quality solutions and a data analyst that provides data insights to ensure we make informed decisions.”
What does a typical day look like for you?
“While each day is never the same, a large part of what I do involves:
- Talking to internal and external groups around challenges they face when it comes to payments.
- Looking through data and feedback from support workers and clients to help understand user behaviour and identify areas the team could focus on and/or improve.
- Working closely with the team to help define and deliver solutions to problems or opportunities within the payments space.
- Working with other teams and departments within Mable to roll out changes on the Mable platform.”
What are some of the main projects you and your team are working on right now?
“The team is currently working to ensure Mable is prepared for the upcoming Support at Home program from an invoicing perspective. The team is also focusing on work to improve the reliability of Mable’s payments platform, so that independent support workers are paid in a more simple and timely way.”
What's one recent product update or improvement that you're particularly proud of?
“The Payments Squad recently worked on changes to how we generate aged care invoice statements for Mable’s aged care clients, focusing on the reliability and accuracy of invoice statements.
This change also helps to prepare Mable, clients, independent support workers and approved aged care providers for the incoming Support at Home changes.”
How does your team incorporate feedback from independent support workers into changes to the Mable platform?
“Feedback is very important to our team, and we understand the frustration it causes if it feels like feedback goes nowhere.
Broadly speaking, we take the following steps to incorporate feedback into what we do on a daily basis:
- Gather feedback from various sources: We collect feedback from a range of sources like official support tickets raised via the Mable support team, direct conversations with support team members who are on the phone or respond via live chat, or comments and posts in Mable community forums and social media groups.
- Understand the challenge: The team groups feedback together to find patterns. If we see a sizable number of support workers report the same glitch around payments, that immediately becomes a high-priority item for us to investigate and fix.
- We make changes that address challenges: The feedback received directly influences what we focus on when it comes to building or fixing a payments related issue.”
What are some of your team's goals over the next 12 months?
“Over the next 12 months, our team’s focus is to completely rebuild Mable’s payments platform to be more robust, tackling the challenges support workers face when it comes to payments.
We’re focused on:
Speed of payouts
Reliable payouts
While speed is important, payouts also need to be reliable. We’re working through and solving the reasons for the most common payout delays. This includes fixing the most frequent invoicing errors that come up for NDIS clients.
We’re also working on ways to better check whether worker rates are going to cause payout delays due to a NDIS rate issue, and addressing any problems before a session takes place.
Payout transparency
We’ve heard a lot from users around how difficult it is to know when or how much they’re going to be paid. We’ve listened and we’re looking at redesigning how we represent and access payments information on the Mable platform. Our goal is to give support workers a clear, easy to understand, and easy to access place to see relevant payments information.
There’s a lot of work to be done, but it is all essential work to help support workers feel confident when it comes to payments so they can focus on what’s important – providing great support to clients.”
What's your favourite thing to do outside of work?
“Outside of work, I love spending time with my family exploring new locations – whether it’s going on a bushwalk or visiting a new holiday destination.”
Stay up to date with changes to the Mable platform
We’re constantly working to improve the Mable platform for our community – whether you receive support or provide support.
To learn more about recent updates we have made to the Mable platform, check out the Platform section of our Newsroom.
