Published: September 5, 2025
IXOPAY has appointed two proven leaders to sharpen merchant experience: Angie Okelberry (VP, Global Customer Success & Support) and Benjamin Canova (Senior Director, Customer Strategy & Account Management).
The goal is clear—use customer success to turn payment orchestration into a measurable growth lever.
IXOPAY Appoints Angie Okelberry & Benjamin Canova To Elevate Merchant Outcomes
Angie Okelberry will lead global success and support with a proactive, data‑driven approach focused on faster integrations, higher approval rates, and smoother expansion.
Benjamin Canova, a practitioner who built the first dedicated payments team at Louis Vuitton, will align account strategy with business goals so enterprises get efficiency and growth—not vendor lock‑in.
This pairing signals a strong bet: outcome‑driven Customer Success in payments.
Why This Matters For Merchants Using Payment Orchestration
1) Faster time‑to‑value. Orchestration reduces integration work and handoffs, which cuts onboarding time and escalations.
2) Higher approval rates and resilience. Smart routing across multiple PSPs can lift auth rates and keep checkout running during outages.
3) Freedom from lock‑in. A vendor‑agnostic model lets you add new methods and markets without rebuilding.
4) Clearer ROI. Full‑funnel data turns CS reviews into business reviews—cost per approval, retry recovery, and NRR impact. For a simple way to connect data across systems, see how clean, connected data unlocks AI‑ready operations in Dispatch Raises $18M to Power AI‑Ready Advisor Data (read the breakdown).
Customer Success Best Practices For Payments Teams
Proactive, data‑driven, and rooted in advocacy—the mix Okelberry outlined—matches what we teach at The CS Café:
Proactive: Anticipate failure modes (issuer declines, 3DS frictions, network blips) and fix before they become tickets.
Data‑driven: Instrument every step—auths, retries, token updates, refunds—and review weekly.
Advocacy: Translate payment signals into business value for finance, product, and growth.
Want a ready‑made structure? Use the Customer Success Plan Template to set objectives, metrics, and owners for your payment program (download the template).
30‑Day Payment Orchestration Playbook (Ship Now)
Week 1 — Baseline the funnel
Segment by market, card type, and method; measure auth rate, soft vs. hard declines, and retry recovery. Set two north‑star metrics: Approval Rate (AR) and Revenue Saved from Retries (RSR).
Week 2 — Quick wins
Run two smart‑routing tests (e.g., BIN‑level routing, issuer fallback). Tighten SCA/3DS flows; track challenge success and abandonment.
Week 3 — CS + Support loop
Add a payments section to Success Plans with owners, risks, and actions—this budget‑friendly playbook shows how to do it fast (build it on a budget). Create a weekly joint review to remove the top three failure reasons.
Week 4 — Prove impact
Roll results into an exec‑ready QBR: auth lift, recovered revenue, new‑market readiness. For leadership frameworks that improve retention, see CS Leadership: Proven Frameworks for 40% Better Retention (get the frameworks).
Fix Billing Friction To Protect Renewals
Payments and billing are two sides of the same customer story.
Invoice errors and slow refunds raise ticket volume and renewal risk. For a practical finance‑CS playbook, see Rillet $70M: Kill Billing Friction, Protect Renewals (read the guide).
Meet IXOPAY At Money20/20 Las Vegas (October 2025)
If orchestration is on your roadmap, stress‑test your plan at IXOPAY’s booth: multi‑PSP strategy, market expansion, tokenization hygiene, fraud signals, and reconciliation.
Recommended Resources For CS Leaders
CS Plan Template: Ship a solid plan in under an hour (get the template).
Churn analysis guide: Find real drivers and fix them (read the churn guide).
Best NPS tools 2025: Pick the right feedback stack (compare top NPS tools).
Final Thoughts: Own The Payment Journey With Customer Success
IXOPAY’s hires reinforce a market trend: Customer Success is the engine for payment orchestration ROI. For merchants, that means faster ramps, stronger approval rates, and fewer surprises. For CS leaders, it’s the cue to instrument end‑to‑end and show revenue impact.