Enthusiastic about product management, being close to customers by genuinely caring about their unique needs and feedback, emotionally dedicated to her profession. We are happy to introduce to you the Product Manager of MaxBilling – Plamena Ivanova!
Having built excellence in a software application for billing process automation and achieving ultimate levels of customer satisfaction, Plamena manages the Relativity-based product more than successfully and leads communication with partners and multiple clients located on five continents.
Get to know our colleague who has told the story of her journey in TSD and shared exclusive insights about our all-in-one billing solution within the Relativity platform.
Learn more by Plamena in the following interview.
- When did you start with TSD, and how did you take the position of Product Manager?
I found TSD three and a half years ago while I was searching for an opportunity to continue my IT career in the small town of Troyan where I had recently moved, which then seemed nearly impossible, not counting the remote work option. In the beginning, I was involved in a few Relativity-based custom projects as a QA analyst, also contributing under the role of a project manager. Soon after that, I started working with the cool MaxBilling team.
- What is it like for you to be the PM of MaxBilling application for the Relativity/RelativityOne platforms?
I love it! MaxBilling is a powerful tool providing a great variety of options to benefit from. Тhe application has its own life in each Relativity instance as users adopt it in their own unique ways.
Additionally, the Relativity platform evolves rapidly, and users want to see each next MaxBilling version catching up with the new workflows and billing opportunities.
- How would you briefly describe MaxBilling to someone who is not familiar with the product?
There is a lot more to MaxBilling beyond billing and charging. It all starts with collecting statistics, and reports and invoices are the output. However, what is really valuable is that MaxBilling allows you to have a complete overview and understanding of your and your clients’ data usage, quantify your data, and discover which billing items get ROI for your Relativity expenses. And last but not least, you can empower your Relativity Clients with their own MaxBilling installation.
- What aspects of product management do you find most exciting?
I am always excited about getting feedback from the MaxBilling customers. I am so inspired when I hear from people who are directly involved in the billing process expressing how MaxBilling has made their lives easier. Or when seeing the reaction of a surprise once users realize that specific billing scenarios of theirs can simply be covered by MaxBilling. This is incomparably motivating for the whole team.
- How has MaxBilling evolved during the years from your point of view?
The pricing models that can be achieved with the app are becoming more and more flexible. The count of the available billing items has been increasing. Users have multiple options to view their report data from different perspectives by using various breakdown levels. The scheduling feature gives you the chance to automate the end-to-end process once you build your settings and forget about the manual effort. The application can work in separate configurations that determine its scope in terms of Relativity Clients or Client Domains. The billing data is secured in each installation and Clients can work independently within the same Relativity instance.
- The new MaxBilling 4.5 version is already a fact. Can you name its top 3 features?
The Invoicing feature has been boosted with further options in terms of how general data and billing items are presented.
New pricing models can be built based on specific Workspaces’ meta-data. For example, you can apply specific rules according to the Workspace location.
The Case Flow billing category comes with new billing items capturing Structured Analytics statistics.
- Can you reveal an important new addition/enhancement which is planned to be included in MaxBilling in the near future?
We will be following a more aggressive development schedule this year, so a lot of exciting stuff is coming soon. The process of initiating report and invoice generation will be streamlined. And the biggest blast of all – we will work on building integrations with other systems.
- You communicate with different clients from all over the world every day. What do you think is the key to great customer service?
The enthusiasm for helping our clients tackle their billing challenges and the empathy for their business needs. I want to say “Thank you!” to all of our partners who take the time to meet me online, share feedback, ask questions, and submit requests as many of them do this too early in their mornings or a bit after their regular end of the day due to the time difference. We are glad that we cover practically all time zones. And this is also driven by our team’s great enthusiasm.
- What can be the biggest challenge for a product manager, speaking from your own experience?
Re-prioritizing what goes into each release based on new information and requests. Direct customer feedback is my strongest argument when I need to push a feature at the expense of taking another story out of an already planned release, so everyone can be happy in the end.
- Share something personal about yourself. Who is Plamena outside of product management and what does she like to do for fun?
I enjoy traveling. I love learning new things about life and myself thanks to my kids. I like the sea and the rocky beaches although I moved to live a bit far away from the sea a few years ago. 😊
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