Who is Juan Arrieta?

Juan is the VP of E-Commerce at Nature’s Way!

What is Nature’s Way?

Nature’s Way started over 50 years ago and remains a family-owned company with a mission to help people live healthy lives. Nature’s Way is focused on being the partner people most trust to support their health, nutrition and vitality. The brand’s broad portfolio of multivitamin, daily immune, digestive support and homeopathic products provide a variety of options for consumers.

Juan’s E-Commerce Journey

Juan has been working in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry for nearly twenty years. He began at Johnson and Johnson before moving on to The Clorox Company where he logged an impressive 13-year tenure. From there, he transitioned to Nature’s Way where he has spent the last year working as the VP of E-Commerce.

Juan embraces cross-team interactions and regularly meets with people from various departments within the company. His goal is not only to foster a highly collaborative environment but also to understand everyone’s pain points. The ultimate goal, of course, is to keep the consumer in mind and remove barriers to engage with consumers.

"I am consumer-obsessed, and I think you need to be in this space because we do everything in service to the consumer and the overall experience, which leads to increased engagement which builds loyalty over time."

Juan's approach involves not just overseeing ecommerce operations but actively immersing himself in different facets of the business. His hands-on involvement with customer service representatives and cross-functional teams showcases a leadership style focused on empathy and problem-solving. By understanding the pain points of various team members, Juan aims to contribute to their growth and streamline their interactions with consumers.

“I think our quality standards are extremely high, and we challenge other brands to raise their game as well.”

What Excites Juan About CX‍

Juan's passion for Customer Experience (CX) in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry is driven by his keen interest in unraveling the complexities of the modern consumer journey.

"Steering them through the funnel as you acquire consumers has now become more critical than ever.”

Juan's excitement is firmly grounded in the belief that success in this process requires an intimate understanding of the consumer journey. "You can't do that effectively without understanding the path to purchase and potential points of interaction for our brand to engage at the right time with the right message.”

To Juan, strategic CX implementation is all about delivering the right messages at the right time. Sometimes, this takes the form of leveraging personal relationships to facilitate sales. He sees the potential for customer service to leverage cross-selling and product recommendations.

However, it’s ultimately the experience itself that is non-negotiable. Consumers who interact with the CX team at Nature’s Way should leave feeling heard and satisfied.

The Customer Service Team at Nature’s Way

Nature’s Way utilizes a lean, but ultimately highly effective CX team. "The customer service team is about six people right now,” Juan explains. However, the brand also utilizes a secondary practitioner team with an additional six people and two product specialists.

These product specialists play a vital role, Juan explains, "They help educate not just the CSRs but also the rest of the organization around specific products, specific herbs, and various elements. This ensures an articulate communication with retailers or consumers directly."

Nature’s Way leverages a deep well of experience when administering its customer service. Many team members have been with the brand for more than fifteen years. Not only does this improve their ability to identify with and assist customers but it also strengthens the depth of their knowledge.

Customers seeking health products want nothing short of expert advice. Nature’s Way can provide them with this thanks to the brand’s extremely impressive CX retention rate.

“Part of our secret sauce….It's having really tenured folks on a team that understand the business, understand the segment, the health and wellness space, and are super passionate about telling that story to a consumer and being able to basically tell anyone about any product at any given moment.”

Nature’s Way is also taking steps to think beyond direct interactions when it comes to managing and influencing the customer experience. Right now they are fine-tuning ways to enhance the pre and post-purchase process.

“We recently added ‘subscribe and save’ capability to our direct-to-consumer website to be able to then have an option for subscriptions there. That previously wasn't done. We've done that over the past two, three months or so….We will start to do more with subscriptions.”

AI or No AI?

Juan describes himself as being pro-AI but feels that it needs to be implemented strategically and with caution. “We are looking at different ways to infuse AI within our processes. The pretty typical ones are the ones that are the easiest to execute. Product quizzes on the site itself, helping the consumer find the right product. We're taking that approach to really build that personalization and deliver value to the consumer.”

Like many E-Commerce leaders, Juan sees AI implementation as a value proposition. He’s open to using it to improve the customer experience but still believes in the value of human interactions.

For now, Nature’s Way is being cautious. Because they sell health products they need to be very careful how they communicate with their customers. This commitment to quality has kept them from settling in on an AI tool at this point.