As the main media partner for Awards International, Customer Experience Magazine get exclusive access to the winning companies all around the world. We interviewed Sam Wegman, VP of Customer Experience at Univar Solutions.
We discussed her career path and how her team aligned everyone in the company with one goal – serving people better. Univar Solutions won 2 gold and 3 silver awards at the US Customer Experience Awards. Sam talked us through the role of CX metrics such as NPS, but also the concept of ownership and inclusive service delivery.
Sam’s experience includes developing innovative B2B Customer Experience programs, strategic commercial solutions and building strong teams that significantly increase revenue and productivity.
Her expertise lies in her ability to define organisational goals, challenges, and vision and lead tactical implementation to deliver consistently strong results. She has a passion for data storytelling, software (CRM) initiatives, business development, and relationship building with both clients and colleagues.
Sam, tell us more about your professional background and your role at Univar Solutions.
My career has spanned over 30 years in the chemical and ingredient distribution business. I have experience in a variety of roles including Finance, IT and Commercial. As the VP of Customer Experience, I am accountable for developing our global CX strategy, driving adoption of the program and lead through influence to drive improvements across the customer journey.
It is said that at Univar Solutions, “We are all CX”. This is a really inspiring way of creating a customer-centric company culture and getting the whole team involved. But what does this motto mean to the team, and how is it enacted?
We opted to use this phrase as part of our Customer Journey Training Program. This focused on ten high level touchpoints for our customer experience. As part of that training, we outlined all the key roles across each touchpoint and the key behaviours needed by all employees to help support driving a culture of responsiveness to our customers and to each other.
AS a result, #weareallCX became more of a mantra across the business and connected noncustomer facing roles to the customer journey. My first role in the business was in accounting and it was difficult to draw a connection to the customer directly. This experience sat with me throughout my career so when I was given the opportunity to lead culture change that put the customer at the center of all we do, the #weareallCX was born and connected ALL roles, not just customer facing roles, to the customers experience.
What is your favourite customer story or case study that you have worked on?
For me, the entire CX Program has been a living case study. We are still early in our program and are just starting to see the benefits of all the work done to date. I do think our Customer CX360 scorecard would land as my favourite to date as it brings everything we have built together, in one place, and it can be shared directly with customers. It’s one thing to talk about CX with our customers, but to show them the work we have done as it relates directly to their business has been game changing.
In 2020, Univar integrated with Nexeo Solutions for process change. How has this new CX programme bettered the approach to the chemical manufacturing industry? And why was this integration so crucial?
The acquisition of Nexeo Solutions provided us with several benefits including a single SAP platform for our businesses, additional product lines, facilities and solutions centers across the verticals to support new product development. To complement our number one position in N America, it was critical we develop a customer experience program that would provide voice of customer feedback focused on the service levels of the basics of our business to ensure we stayed in front of the challenges associated with not only the integration, but also the pandemic and market challenges we faced during the development of the program.
Now that we have made it through those tougher times, we can look back and benchmark ourselves against our own performance. In terms of the chemical industry, we feel as a distributor, we are leading in this area in terms of providing a comprehensive CX360 to our customers, along with predictive analytics that allow us to be proactive. Through industry consortiums (like Dow’s AMCX), we can share best practices and starting frameworks to other Chemical B2B companies considering CX Programs.
Your team won 2 gold and 3 silver awards at the US Customer Experience Awards. Congratulations! Let’s focus on ‘Best B2B Customer Experience’ first. What was it about this initiative that you believe made Univar Solutions stand out and come out on top?
Honestly, I think just having a full two years under our belt to show the strategy at work was really what resonated with the judges. Given we have had 2 years of data, we were able to show a ROI based on account growth and performance metrics for those accounts that either were promoters or moved from a detractor to a promoter. Additionally, we talked about our mantra, #weareallCX, which has driven ownership across the business and at the leadership level to help change the culture and drive improvements within the functions. Lastly, I do think our work to build a CX360 and synthetic NPS to fully complement those that do not respond to surveys, has positioned us to be proactive with our customers when it comes to their customer experience.
Univar Solutions’ also won gold for ‘Best use of Insights & Feedback‘. This is becoming an increasingly important business topic, especially as customer responses to feedback platforms is changing. What do you think Univar Solutions did differently on this that aided this victory?
Part of our strategy ensures every NPS responses is read with detractors requiring a sales leader to contact the account within 48 hours, develop an action plan and discuss with the customer. We also have engaged the required internal teams (Customer Service as an example) and provide real-time NPS feedback to support and collaborate with the sales leaders to drive the best solutions to the feedback. Customers are always pleasantly surprised when they hear from us, but also grateful to know actions are being put into place to address their concerns.
Working on CX is a never ending process and is always been adapted. So, what is your CX team working on currently?
For the balance of 2023, it’s all about global adoption to the strategy, sharing of best practices and making sure allour teams have a CX360. Currently, it is live in North America, so standing that tool up in LATAM and EMEA will help us continue to drive our CX culture and ensure we are staying focused on the customer experience. In addition to rolling out our initiatives across the globe, we are also drilling deeper into text comments with tools built within Qualtrics (text IQ) and new products like echoes.io to help us better understand customer sentiment.