National Customer Service Week: Three Associate Stories, One Commitment to Customer Trust
Customer service is at the heart of everything we do at Americold. Across every role, customer service remains the common thread. It is not limited to a department or a single interaction; it is the collective result of people completing their part of the service with care.
As we recognize National Customer Service Week, three women across Americold APAC share what customer service looks like in their roles. While their responsibilities and approaches differ, they share a common goal: building trust with customers through responsiveness, relationships, and living our core values.
Taking Ownership Every Day
For Ugwumsinachi Ezema, Accounts Receivable Officer, customer service starts with accountability, believing it’s everyone’s responsibility.
Her approach to customer service is rooted in ownership. Whether helping resolve invoice questions, addressing system issues or coordinating across teams, she works to keep customers informed and work toward a solution. Even when an immediate answer is not available, proactive communication helps build confidence and trust.
By staying responsive and maintaining clear communication throughout the problem-solving process, she helps earn customer trust by showing that accountability doesn’t end when a problem is identified. It continues until a solution is found.
Building Trust Through Relationships
Customer service is built one interaction at a time – a lesson Robyn Barnes, Customer Service Officer in Christchurch, has learned through more than 20 years of supporting customers.
Robyn believes strong customer relationships start with understanding each customer’s business, the impact that even small disruptions can have on their operation, and the person behind the request. That perspective helps her communicate more effectively, anticipate needs and provide better support when challenges arise.
Responding quickly, using a customer’s name correctly and following through on commitments may seem like small actions, but they help build the trust that strong customer partnerships depend on.
That mindset proved especially valuable during recent site enhancements and customer inventory transfers, which required careful coordination across locations, clear communication and close attention to detail to ensure a seamless transition.
For Robyn, customer trust is earned through consistency, with the smallest interactions often having the biggest impact on long-term relationships.
Leading Through Change
With more than two decades of experience with Americold, Catrin VanBelkom, Administration Manager in Hemmant, has seen the business evolve significantly.
Beginning her career as a customer service clerk, Catrin has supported major operational initiatives throughout her time with Americold, including system implementations, customer transitions and process improvements.
Throughout these changes, Catrin’s deep customer knowledge and operational experience helped teams identify challenges early, adapt to new ways of working and keep projects on track.
For Catrin, trust is built by helping customers navigate change with confidence, ensuring they feel supported even when operations, systems or processes are evolving around them.
Customer Service Starts Within Our Teams
Customer service takes many forms. Sometimes it’s problem solving, guiding a customer through change or supporting a teammate behind the scenes. The experiences of Ugwumsinachi, Robyn and Catrin demonstrate that while great service may look different from role to role, it is always rooted in trust.
Whether it’s helping a customer solve a problem, guiding them through change or supporting colleagues behind the scenes, each interaction contributes to the experience customers have with Americold. Strong customer relationships often begin with strong internal relationships, where teams work together to deliver consistent, reliable service.
This National Customer Service Week, we’re proud to recognize associates like Ugwumsinachi, Robyn and Catrin who help strengthen relationships, build trust and deliver exceptional experiences for customers every day.