I don't know where to start, I am not an employee/contractor or a merchant service provider. I am the CEO of my own company, we use the Fiserv/FirstData's payment infrastructure to process payments for our clients. We started with First Data, later acquired by Fiserv. It was great working with them in the beginning, but as time went on, they just became a nightmare to deal with. Lack of technical documents were a huge problem, my developers would have to email back and forth so many times before a correct solution is found. Product people didn't have a clue on anything technical (API, Payment Gateways etc), and the technical people had no clue about compliance or the product limitations. The biggest problem is that one department doesn't have a clue about other departments, instead they are telling me as a client to contact other departments to get things done. Part of the problem is that, everything still runs on old legacy technology, they haven't invested in anything new, it is all over the place, and it's not seamless. Who the he-l wants 5 separate logins to multiple portals to manage a merchant account?? This is not just a Fiserv problem, There are even worst products out there like chase payment tech if you can believe it. To be fair FD did have plenty of knowledgeable people working there who were excellent to deal with, some of whom I recently learned have left the company. Companies like Stripe/Square are eating your lunch. Plaid is also a game changer from a developer perspective, with a single API I can connect to all the major banks. Stripe integration literally takes few weeks, Fiserv's integration could easily take up to 3 months or more just because one department is clueless what the other department is up to. ALSO why the he-l are you using salesforce?? Why don't you build your own ERP to manage all endpoints?? The only reason why Fiserv is still in business is because of the relationship with banks and the services they offer to them, like online banking (it sucks BTW) Lockbox services, and other enterprise level solutions. Clover Device is way overpriced, but their SDK has potential for platforms like us, unfortunately lot of the same problems (Lack of response, non technical sales people) still exist. The regulations is what kept you safe from competition but those regulations are slowly coming down, what was impossible technically 20 years ago is now possible because of technology. I want to see this company succeed but at the current pace, they are not going to make it when the payment technology shifts over to something that is cheaper and easier to integrate with. I am talking about a future where all banking is done online and new credit-card/ach like networks come on board, where the money is transferred instantly between bank accounts, not 2-3 days to settle. Sorry about the long Rant, hopefully someone will help me understand what the he-l is going on with this company. I assume most of you are current or ex-employees, please share my concerns with senior management. Can't wait to see the responses.
17 replies (most recent on top)
@2tzx+1g2vcMiH While I appreciate your reply, you have to understand that I am client of Fiserv. I am not supposed to be spending time on issues that should be quickly resolved by your team. Your own team members here are telling me to look else where. I have emailed and spoken to people in charge, there is nothing they can do. Problem is not with senior level management although they are part of the problem, it is with your executive management. Either they are incompetent or they think they are too big to fail, my guess would be it's a bit of both. Frank is trying to save his job and keeping wall street happy is all that matters. We all know that every company that tried to keep wall street happy eventually dies. You also have to understand that in this business it's all about relationships, yelling and screaming at people is not going solve any problems, and I don't want to be known as the guy who does that. I tried to be polite and give my input at every opportunity I get but it goes no where. So you lost me as a client.
How bad does it have to be that I am on a anonymous website complaining to employees who are also fed up. There is another company called Global Payments who used to be just as worse, and guess what they kept losing clients, because of that they quickly changed their attitude and now they are innovating. They still have a long way to go but they are constantly building out more solutions. The only way Fiserv can be saved is if it gets acquired by a real tech company with a CEO who isn't afraid to push the boundaries. Good luck to all of you.
So even Directors get goals that they have no control over. At least that is consistent.
So if reducing attrition is being pushed to your goals, I assume you are at least a director.
It also proves o me that the person on this board who continues to state their are 200 malcontents and 44000 happy fiserv employees is full of it.
@2tzx+1g2vcMiH lol
Too little too late. The problem is that bad leadership and their poor judgement is causing people to leave or distracting those who stay. Its tough to give your best to your clients when you are worried about Fr@nk’s next du----s move.
There is no innovation when you cant keep talent and the idea that the attrition rate is not an issue is a lie. Reducing attrition has been called out as a goal coming out of the Sr Leader meetings. I know that because its being pushed into my goals.
Dear upset CEO, I am so sorry that you are not happy with Fiserv services. Here are my thoughts:
- I believe all clients receive a client sat survey 1x a year. These scores are monitored and your account team is tasked with addressing issues and improving your Likely To Recommend score. So, pls make sure to complete that survey and of course be honest. You can and should list names and details.
- If your issue is with clover, look on LinkedIn for other leaders in the clover space. There is someone in that space that I trust as a leader to get things done, but I cannot post his name here but his first name rhymes with pan and his last name is Scandinavian.
- I am sure you are doing this already, but continue to work through your account team / management chain. They are assigned to be your advocate. If they aren't meeting your needs, you can ask to be reassigned.
- If there is a customer advisory group and you aren't engaged, have someone from your org join.
- As needed, ask to have an audience with product mgt and or development. Perhaps speaking to the right line employees will make a difference.
- If you don't have a regular meeting with your account team, ask for one to be esstablished with the frequency to be at least monthly and require that issues are tracked and updated. This status report should be sent to you in advance. Do not allow them to close or remove items until you Agee that the item has been resolved.
- You could send a letter to Frank with a copy to your relationship team outlining your issues and your expectations. I would hope that would get results.
@1snb+1g2vcMiH
I don't know if you are trolling or not. Well I am a Fiserv client, So I don't have an issue with WFH as long as the work gets done. I personally think giving people flexible work days could be an alternative, like working few days in the office. Let's say you come in for a meeting and work for a few hours. After that you go to lunch, then you go home and continue working. Coming in 1 or 2 days for meetings with your team is not a bad option.
My beef is with your management. How can they run a "fintech" company and not innovate or even ship a single damn product? I been with them over 5 years, nothing has improved or changed. Other than Clover, they haven't built anything, which BTW was acquired. Don't get me started on telecheck, like every product is either old or just rebranded. You guys have great talent but their potential is wasted on trying to sell and manage old legacy products.
Fiserv needs a singular vision either you focus on big enterprise/banks or you focus on SME's/B2C solutions. They are trying to play in both markets, and ultimately they are not going to be good at either. If I were Frank, I would split the company into two, keep both to avoid layoffs and let each company focus on their respective markets. I am not a fan of Jack Dorsey because of his politics, but Fiserv needs somebody like him that knows how to build tech products. Just look at cashapp by Square, the technology behind it is not that complicated, Fiserv could easily build and ship that app in less than a year.
Fiserv is like the Sears in the early days, they didn't innovate or shift their business model to the internet. Instead they continually focused on business as usual retail growth approach and now they are gone. I really want you guys to succeed. Time will tell, I will give Fiserv another 5 years before it collapses. Thank you all for your responses.
You, obviously, are not on the front line and hearing directly from the clients. Fiserv has had a real and impactful brain drain and the problems caused from lands solely at the hands of the leader you tout.
Right. The experience the OP describes is solely the fault of 200 out of 44000. The others are hard at work keeping his systems up to date and providing the best fintech on the planet or in the galaxy.
You’re saying their observations aren’t as they describe and they are at fault for any mess.
What color is the sun in your world?
As a client you aren’t being told the truth. This site is mainly used by a small part of the 44,000 employees at Fiserv to advocate that they can work from home full-time. The ceo doesn’t want that with the exception of sales, client service and a few other sme’s. So the remaining work from home contingent come here to amplify 200 voices. Fiserv attrition lower than all competitors and most other fortune 500’s.
Sadly,our mgt team wants us to fall in line like good soldiers. It is rare to find someone in leadership that speaks the truth, let along is welcome to hear it from one of their employees. If an employee speaks the truth they are labeled a malcontent and then they are targeted like a deer in hunting season.
“ ? Why don't you build your own ERP to manage all endpoints?? ”. Thats hysterical. You think Fiserv has teams of developers??? Lol. Funny.
@pmw+1g2vcMiH , in all seriousness. The new management of Fiserv doesn't care about clients, and employee's. They only care about short term gains. You should bail on Clover and move over to Square. There is a reason they have a larger market cap in this space.
Just like employees, best to get an exit strategy. The uncertainty of this company is everywhere.
For one I know this is genuine because we as employees we so often hear this expressed to clients: "we need to work on that" or "we hear you and we will definitely work on it", sorry for your troubles. The post here from @ldo+1g2vcMiH is dead on about the tone deaf leadership. The FD leadership has been and now with Fiserv single focused on building investor equity period. Fiserv/FD is not a client centric business. Much of the talent your missing has left the company what remains is in short supply. While I don't work directly in your space I have worked with the API layer I agree it is old and complicated. Clover's brain drain shocking. Your observations are correct my advice don't wait until the end of the year begin executing your replacement plan ASAP. We as employees keep hoping it will turn around however much of what you will read here we have given up looking for an out (new job, retirement...). The Fiserv thread on thelayoff is one of the most frequented for a reason. Good Luck
@ldo+1g2vcMiH Well it sounds worst than I thought. It's gotten so worse that I am on a anonymous forum ranting about Fiserv's management in hopes some employee will address these concerns to management. We had conference calls with SVP's and every time I brought up all the problems mentioned here, their response was "we need to work on that" or "we hear you and we will definitely work on it". It's been more than 5 years, on the software side nothing has changed. No innovations or improvements. I have not seen any change with management, same people selling same cr---y product. What is sad is that, they have great employees like you who is willing to go above and beyond. Unfortunately the company is way too big at this point, with too many mid-level managers whose job is to keep all the complaints hidden from management and employees. We are not a huge enterprise, we serve SME's payment needs. It seems to me that only big clients get all the attention and all other smaller clients concerns are put aside.
I wonder if Frank hates us?? Lol I know there are lot of small firms like us that make up the bulk of the balance sheet. I am still with Fiserv, I am willing to wait until the end of this year after that I am moving out. Already preparing now, I know few others are also fed up with Fiserv, they are moving on to Dwolla for ach and Stripe. It a huge cost to change over payment integrations but I am tired of waiting and not closing sales because we (Fiserv) took too long to board the merchant.
Oh my god. "please share my concerns with senior management." You think Fiserv has internal communication? You think we can tell Senior management anything? The internal communication at Fiserv is SO BAD, that senior management cannot send messages down to the working employees. Both top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top communication is completely severed. Messages are not getting through. We can't even tell them that it is broken, because the messages don't get through. We bring it up in large meetings with upper-middle managers, nothing happens. The worst part is that they are so incompetent that they don't even bother to check to see if anyone is receiving messages. If they would just check their work one time they would see there is a clear and obvious problem. Nope. Still totally broken.
That is one of the reasons I love working with third party vendors. I would enjoy working with a team like yours. Because, unlike most Fiserv teams I've worked with, third party vendors actually respond to email. Shocking, I know. The teams that do reach out and communicate are very friendly with each other. That is because we know how rare it is to find someone who responds within Fiserv. There are a few teams in Fiserv who are adequate with communication, but it seems that the others are really, really bad at getting back to people. Maybe those teams are just taking pointers from senior leadership and I am in the wrong for not following their example?
No one is going to mention this on the company wide surveys. If we say there is a problem with communication, they will just have large meetings even more frequently where they do not leave room for questions, and they do not provide meaningful information. No one wants to go through that again.
One thing that does seem to work is when companies threaten to leave. Maybe try threatening to leave for a bit? See if that helps. I've been in a few fire drills where we need to make a quick change to keep a client from leaving.
Good luck with your project. Hope the team you are working with starts getting back to you.
Just to clarify on "I am the CEO of my own company" What I meant to say is, we are not an ISO/Reseller. We have a partnership with Fiserv, but we operate independently.