Paulo Mendes Jr: A shared vision for the LATAM region of Coca-Cola

Do to the other one what you would like to have. And that's so simple, so powerful message that sometimes it's so difficult to do it. So if you are really not putting ourselves in the shoes of the others and try to be empathetic to what they're struggling, how can we help and how can we help each other because we also struggle? That would be fantastic.

Hello, I'm Adam Durrell, host of the Account Experience podcast. This is your weekly moment of refreshment in a world of ever evolving beverages. So think of us as taking the sweet fears of enterprise account sales combined with the smooth bourbon of customer experience together. It's a new and unique drink. Let's call it the Jack Daniels and Coke of Account experience. And that, my friends, is a topical reference to the new Jack Channels and Coke drink from Coca Cola. Just launching in Coca Cola Latin America, which is where I am now attending the first CX summit of Coca Cola Latam and Coca Cola Femce right here in Mexico City. It's my first time here. What an opportunity to come here. So it's a super place. Now, if you've been on the podcast before, you'll know that in every episode I like to catch up with inspiring industry leaders or thinkers. They like to share best practices and tips. We capture them and we help you develop your Account Experience program as a result. I'm also a father of four, a founder and fanatically interested in human relationships and I love anything that furthers that quality of human, human connection. Today I am talking with Paolo Mendez Jr. LatAm value to Market head Coca Cola and he's been hosting a two day summit here, educating more than 130 staff members from across the region. He's got an amazing background in the Coca Cola business and we get into that. And about how he's been rolling out a common program of customer centricity to keep Coca Cola innovating in delivering customer value not only to consumers, but also to everyone in the B2B channel and the independent trade and so on. Today he was so generous to share his progress that we start our interview in a noisy conference room, which we got booted out of after a few minutes. Hi Paolo, I'd love to find out a little bit about your journey in Coca Cola to this point. Tell me about yourself.

Thanks Adam. It's a pleasure to be here with you. And my journey started. I was very fortunate. My journey started 30 years ago in Coke and I started selling the street and was one of the most important things in my life. Because I was able to understand the reality of how to sell and of different customers in different markets and I was able to move in different positions. So working in supply chain logistics, in planning, in commercial, in route to market, I was able to have for nine years a global role as a leader for all the company operations for both logistics and supply chain planning. And then I come back to Brazil. I was able to create an area of business transformation. Then I come back to commercial to lead the commercial execution in Brazil, then commercial execution Latin America and more recently to create the area for value to market for latam.

So before we get into value to market, I just want to come back to this. You started really on the field, right? In the field, working, going into retailers?

Yes.

Tell me a little bit about what that was like 30 years ago.

Yes. And I never forget the first time that I was selling to the very first customer because I went to the store and it was like, you know, a bar and he was fixing a toaster if I remember correctly. And I started to talk to him and make sure that he understand all the promotions that we have, all the benefits that we can generate and the process that we have. And he was just fixing the toaster and was not looking to my eyes, was no head down. And I finished, I talked for two minutes, three minutes and I finished talking and he, you know, look at me, stare for a while, had the head down again and continue to fix the toes. I said he did not understand anything at all. That I said that was for me the most important thing because, you know, be able to connect with customer, be able to understand the customer language, be able to understand how to position your customer is key. And after that point in time, this was one of the key learners that I carry for my whole life. Always trying to, you know, be on the other's shoes and see how can we, you know, share what our view and what are proposing in their view as well.

Now everyone I've spoken to that comes up from that sort of field sales role talks about how busy it was. I mean did you have to do many visits a day? What was your typical day like?

A typical day we started the route at 7am and 55050 customers per day.

Incredible.

And come back like 5:36pm and you know, come back home, start a new day, next day, Monday to Saturday. So pretty busy.

But you've gone on a real journey. I mean 30 years in the company, now you are in the VTM role. I think it's value to market.

Yes, it is so can you tell.

Us a little bit about what that means in the Coca Cola context?

Yes, I think that's a major step that the company is doing where we're evolving from the concept of route to market to the concept of value to market. And what is the difference when thinking about route to market? We are just trying to get, you know, just trying. So we are trying to get the product in the point of sale with the right customer service level at the right cost level. But when you're talking about value to market, you really put the customer and the consumer in the center. So instead of you trying to thinking about what do you need to do based on the capabilities that you have, you started to discuss and ask what are the capabilities that I need to develop to be able to fulfill that consumer, that customer needs? So that's one major step that the company is doing in this objective. Becoming full customer centricity and consumer driven.

It's a move away from the traditional view as we're just going to produce a lot of product. It's really asking the B2B customer what they want.

Yeah, not only the customer, but also the consumer. So we start with the consumer in the center and moving back to understand what the customer that fulfill that consumer needs and then be able to see what is the portfolio, what is the service, what are the support that they have to make sure that we are really, really a partner with that customer.

And so you've recently started to become much more involved in customer centricity. So let's talk a little bit about that journey. What are some of the things that inspired you to go on your journey of customer experience here?

I think the whole market is evolving in the last 10, 15 years. And in this evolution, I think all the companies needs to develop the process and change the way that they operate to make sure that they can become a company that is easy to do business with. A company that really understand the customer. And I started to look at myself and look at other companies and look at the whole market environment. And we as a company started to see that there are opportunities for us to accelerate and become a leading organization in this area as well. And that's why we said, okay, let's, let's not put all the process, tools, capabilities and people with no disface. The second point is the company has a very clear purpose, which is make sure that we make everyone's lives better. Yeah, that's the product. So we become a company that it's a total beverage company.

Yes.

So we have recently launched some you know, alcohol drinks and we have, you know, juice, water, milk, sparkling stills.

Yeah.

So the purpose of the company is really to refresh the world and make a difference. And make a difference means how can we, you know, help the customers, the consumers, etc. And it's a very humble position because you put yourself in a position to understand what the other stakeholder, what is the other entity needs and how can you partner to help succeed together.

So when you think about the customer centricity, I mean you're impacting a lot of people. I believe you said in the whole Latin America region, something like 4.8 million outlets. It's an incredible number of companies you're touching that are part of your supply chain and all of the families that are connected with that. I mean it's a huge footprint you've got. So when you think about customer centricity, what sort of impact do you hope it's going to have on the lives of the people that you work with, your business, business partners?

Yeah. The first thing is we really want to take out all the pain points.

Right.

That the customers have to do business with us. That's for me is key because you know, today we feel the digitization and all the digital transformation that are happening in the last few years. We have a lot of opportunities and ways to implement things that, you know, if you look at 20 years ago, we're not able to do it. So I think now leverage the whole transformation that digital is bringing is key for us to address those pain points and make sure that the customers can say wow, Cook is great because doing business with them is something that's very nice, smooth, they understand my business and they help me grow. The second thing that I believe in this journey is that the technology itself that we are seeing is take out a lot of the burden that we had in the past. Now take a look on ChatGPT. Yeah, this is something that the company was one of the first one to embrace. So we had a partnership with OpenAI and started to put, you know, very quickly, one advertise, one market campaign in the market based and leveraging, you know, chatgpt. So that's Coca Cola. That's the DNA of Coca Cola is be able to bring in solutions and leverage fees that happen in the market to connect more with consumers, help customers to do business and grow together. And the company not stopped now it's 137 years and it's just like a startup. It's just like a startup to be very honest. And 95 years in Mexico and 95 years in Mexico. And you know, we are partner with startup, we have open innovations. So we do a lot of things to really, we don't have a fear to test, learn and bring in outside innovation.

This podcast is sponsored by CustomerGage and they're the experienced leader in the CPG market. Let me tell you why they're contacting more people in the independent trade and modern trade than any other customer experience company out there. And you'll know the brands that they work with. We're talking Coca Cola, AB, InBev, Heineken. Just a takeaway. They're literally pulsing millions of contacts around the world in more than 60 countries multiple times a year, delivering those insights to thousands and thousands of frontline employees in those companies. But you know, it's not just the CPG business Customer Gauge is famous for. They're ranked number one for B2B customer experience by Gartner. However, if you're in the CPG business and you have not contacted Customer Gauge to understand what is going on in your business, you're seriously missing out because we know there are other people out there just doing it once a year. Well, Customer Gauge gives you customer insights 52 weeks a year, right to the front line in real time. It's going to absolutely transform your business like nothing else. But don't take our word for it. Listen to the podcast and they'll tell you exactly why.

So you spoke about pain points. Are you able to give an example perhaps of somebody in the independent trade about some of the things that you think that the customer experience can help get through?

I think the most basic thing is we need to ensure that we deliver what was asked on time. That's the most. It's as simple as that. So if you're able to do that, we are good. Keep the promises, keep the prompts. So we promise. That was interesting because when I was a few years ago, I was, you know, handling customer service in Brazil and we had several surveys in the market with large retailers and the answer that they gave for the survey was, I don't need you to promise something that you will not deliver. I want you to promise something that you're going to deliver. Because consistency is as important as being able to promise something. So don't promise and don't and do not know. Fulfill the promise. Fulfill the promise that you set. So that's if you're able to just focus on that and take out point points that can vary from market to mark, because some markets you have a lot of gems Other markets you have is related to raw materials, et cetera, et cetera. So that's our fault. How could you understand the order to cash process and make sure that to take out the pain points throughout this.

That's a really good example of doing it. I mean, keeping your promises, I really love. And that thinking about it, that's kind of similar to the golden rule.

Yes, it is.

And that allows me to move into what we've just been experiencing. I mean, you've had an incredibly busy two days here for your first customer experience summit in the region. I want to say congratulations. I thought it was a superb event. And the event kicked off with Fred Reichelt talking about the Golden Rule. So I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about what the idea behind this summit was and about what are you trying to achieve in the company.

Yeah. The idea of the summit started with looking at and say we need to gather everybody together and above the company and all our butlers, partners, and dream together and create a shared vision about what we're going to accomplish to make sure that we can not only put this vision as one team, but also to see how can we accelerate towards this vision. So this was in the beginning of the year, we said, okay, let's do that. I talked with, you know, Luis here and it was interest after these two days to see that we accomplished the goal, which was no, everybody, you know, is living here with a shared vision. But more important, everybody's living here different from what, how they got into.

Yeah.

So they have a more clearly view about the importance of customer experience. They have a very clear vision about steps that needs to be taken to get into this customer experience journey. And we have an aligned framework. So things that are key to not be just, you know, a summit.

Yes.

So the summit was just a way for us to accelerate and really spark this energy, this collective genius for the system and be able to accelerate the journey. And the summit itself for me was very good because what Fred mentioned. No, let's try to do something to the other partner that you like to receive.

Yes.

The goal really is so simple. I cannot disconnect this from what Jesus said. I can't. I'm sorry, I don't know if you believe or not, but this was the first one to say, do to the other one what you like to have. And that's so simple, so powerful message that sometimes it's so difficult to do it. So if you are really not putting ourselves in the shoes of the others and try to be empathetic to what they're struggling. How can we help and how can we help each other? Because we also struggle. That would be fantastic.

So I totally agree. I mean we'll talk about human connection in a moment. But just coming back to the event, so, you know, a lot of information was shared. What are some of your key takeaways? Did you learn anything in particular or did the people that were here? Because there were 100 people here.

I learned tons of things. I can tell you it was for me was much more than I expect because we were able to learn from other companies, we were able to learn from Custom Gate, we were able to learn from Fred, we're able to learn from our butler partners. So was really a collective genius. And I like this because this allow us to get insights from different points. And those insights sometimes is very simple. But I was looking at one movie, the Gladiator and was a scene that for me struck me as being a kissing because at that point in time I think was Crow. Richard Crowe.

Russell Crowe.

Russell Crowe. Russell Crowe was with the emperor and he said, but how are we gonna know Protect Rome? And the emperor said, what is wrong? And Crow stopped and started thinking about. And the emperor said home was an idea and home is an idea. And I stopped at that point in time, look at the movie. And I really didn't pay more attention to that. I started reflecting to myself that everything started with an idea. Have a great company, have a great business, have a great solution. Everything started with an idea. So if you're able to get one idea that sometimes come from one side and make this idea big and that going to connect it to things that people need, this idea going to become great, going to become large, going to be on scale. So we were able to get several insights in this workshop in this summit. I think the first one is that it's not just about nps, it's not just about NFPRO Score. It's about the culture. It's about the closed loop process. It's about to ensure that you have the basic foundations in place that are going to sustain the results and help you to shape the organization across all different levels and succeed in the market. Because sometimes just put a metric is very simple. Just put a tool is very simple. Just put something but create a culture. And that's why people say that cultures eat the strategy, eat the strategy in the breakfast for breakfast. So be able to connect this customer experience to the culture itself, I think was a key one.

Yeah. First of all, I was honored to attend the Conference.

And I'm glad that you're here.

But I took the. One of the things that Fred said at the end, he said it before, but I like it. It's about humility. Be humble. And I think that is such a powerful message for a large organization like yours to take on board. I think you already have a pretty good way of dealing with customers. I mean, you wouldn't be successful if you weren't. But I can really see that you have a vision to just keep going one step ahead. And that for me, really shone through. I was very impressed with that.

Yes. And one thing that I really learned, I did a PhD and what I learned is that I don't know pretty much anything at all. I don't know. That was the key. After five years of study, I said, we don't know. And the more you know, the more you are humbled to understand that you don't know. So the more we evolve in this journey as a company, the more we deep dive and try to become better company and better with our customers, the more we are humble to say there are more things to do and let's keep doing it. Let's accelerate the things that we can do because we will not settle at any time. So it's just 137 years. And they're just beginning. We are just beginning. I can tell you the growth potential, all the opportunity that we have in the market to fulfill, really consumer needs to touch the life of consumers in a way that they can enjoy a moment. They have a feeling and the sense that this moment is key. It's something that, it's our DNA.

Let's talk about the culture of the geographic space we're in. By the way, this is my first trip to Latin America. Really excited to be here. You've had global roles in the organization. So how, how do you typify, for example, adoption of customer experience in this region? What do you think will go faster or slower? Can you speak about that?

I think Latin America, it has some. No important characteristics first, usually latams. They are open to new things.

Yeah.

Much more than other places. So that's, that's key because when you bring something new, they are open to say, yeah, let's test. They don't come up with, okay, let's get you 300 questions. And after you answer the 300 questions with positive answers. Yeah, I can go and test something. No, but a lot of times are open to test. I think the second thing Latinos are open for, embrace the new. Especially when talking about Digitization, Digitization, digitization. So it's something that you can see the level of digitization that you have in Brazil, that you have in Argentina, that you have in Chile. So countries that pretty much you don't have money circulating, you are doing picks in Brazil or digital wallet, et cetera.

And we see things like WhatsApp being.

Used as a. WhatsApp being frontline Latin America, WhatsApp Latin America is everything. You don't have that in the us, you don't have that in Europe. You're just talking about sms. It's still sms.

And by the way, I think that makes business really intimate. So you're already along on the way, I think to make, to really personalize the relationship.

And the last point about I think LATAS is that we as a business, we really want to continue help set the agenda for, I think the organization for the industry to help shape the future. That's something that we do. We have several practices that were developed in Latan that was spread out but at the same time come back to the humbleness. We kept a humble approach to say what are things that outside Latan are doing that we can bring in? For instance, the whole custom gauge is a clear example. Was not developed in latam, was not implemented in latam, was actually implemented in Europe. But we learned that was good. We benchmark and we say this is great, so let's import. So it's not just us trying to develop ourselves and develop things internally like an Iceland, but to be able to connect with the rest of the world, learn what they have, understand how to bring in and how to leverage to get the business better.

Yeah, I mean I've also seen that you are somewhere into your journey and I see some real acceleration on this. Congratulations by the way because you've got a lot of big territory to spread this out on. What do you think's going well with your customer experience program and what would you like to do more of?

I think we are just starting to be very honest and I think what's going well is that we have the whole Coca Cola system, Coca Cola and bottlers together in this journey. It's not something that the company or something that just the bottle is the whole Coca Cola system and that's very powerful. I think that's working very well. We have early adoption. Some of our bottlers like Wakala, Femsa, Cocala, Arca, they embrace this and they are really not pushing this forward and what can we accelerate? I think it's not only be able to get More regions and more places with the foundations implemented, but also being able to really have a process and something that's very sustainable. Yeah, we don't want to do this like, you know, a wave. It's a wave. We're gonna do this that says for exile and one year and a half from now. Yeah. What's the next wave? No. How can we get, you know, the foundations in place? Is sustainable, a good business, a good operation. It's an operation that started the journey and keeps growing over time. And I never settle. It's just. No, keep up the pace for that. And I think if you're able to get more regions at the same time, we're able to get the regions that we are with sustainable products that close the loop. Like, no. Educate, organization, create a culture, etc. I think we're going to be great.

Yeah, I think so too. I want to touch on the digitization path that you've been talking about, because you said that's a huge thing that's going on. Technology is really transforming the lives. But it seems to me one of the things that if you get customer experience right, it actually connects back to the human. And I want to try and relate this back to how you started your journey in the company. You were doing 50 visits a day. And if you put yourself in the shoes of today's sales reps, how do you think that customer feedback empowers the salespeople? Are they scared of it or will they embrace it? Talk a little bit about if it were you doing it.

I think the most important thing to ensure that we get people engaged is to make sure that they understand the why and the how. Most of the time, the blocks that we have in people is not because people are blocked, they are not engaged, they don't want to do things, etc. Most of the time, the issue is that I don't know why I'm doing that or. And I don't know what I'm expecting or you expect me to do.

Yeah.

What I expect to do. So if you're able to connect with those frontline leaders and, you know, across the organization, because not just frontline, salesforce, you know, you have supply chain, you have finance, you have everybody touch. Customer experience. Customer experience. So if you're able to do that and explain then and engage them in a way that they understand why I do this, which is to better connect with customers as well as how and what is the role that we expect from them in this whole mosaic, I think we will not see a problem because we have been through the digitization for a while and we didn't see a problem because people understand why we're doing this and how this will benefit them.

Yeah, I agree. I think my dream is that reps are able to reduce some of the friction in their roles and really come up a level, but to really become trusted consultants on that one. Paolo, thank you so much for your time today. It's been great to speak to you. Thank you so much for bringing me here, and I wish you every success with the program. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here. Bye. Bye.