ThompsonGas

Valerie Eden is Vice President of Customer Experience at ThompsonGas, where she leads initiatives focused on customer retention, revenue growth, and operational efficiency. Bringing over 15 years of experience in product development, sales, and customer success, she applies a customer experience lens to drive business growth. Her work centers on data-driven strategy, personalized communication, marketing for growth and retention, and increasing digital adoption to improve customer engagement and deliver measurable business outcomes.

In this feature, Valerie Eden shares her perspective on how organizations can build stronger customer relationships through a truly customer-centric approach.

Building a Truly Customer-Centric Approach

When I arrived at ThompsonGas, I spent my first few months listening across teams, roles, and leadership levels to understand how the business operated from the inside. Then I turned to our customers by listening to calls and reading feedback to compare what we believed we were delivering with how customers were experiencing it.

That perspective created clarity. It helped connect internal efforts with real customer expectations and highlighted opportunities to strengthen the experience.

Starting from the inside and working outward allowed us to align what we were building with what customers truly needed. Many of the solutions were already within reach. We just needed to see them through the right lens.

Customer Experience (CX) is the best job in the business because we are taking care of humans and solving business problems at the same time. It’s a puzzle we all get to solve together.

I have the opportunity to lead an incredible team across marketing, customer service training, customer relations, and digital reputation management. They are the reason we have been successful in reaching our goals this year. Together, we stay close to our customers, bring ideas forward, and turn strategy into real results every day.

Balancing Operational Efficiency with Personalized Customer Experience

Growth requires the ability to scale, and scaling requires discipline.

Our approach starts with internal training, coaching, and shared accountability. We keep a human-centered mindset in how we support each other and how we serve our customers. Staying aligned as one team allows us to move faster and execute more consistently.

We bring our customer-facing teams and our customers into everything we build and improve. Their insight ensures that what we create works in real situations, not just in theory. We use feedback sessions, surveys, satisfaction scoring, and call quality evaluations daily. I like to call us “customer-obsessed.” It works well. Less guessing.

Our focus is simple. Build customer service processes and tools that are efficient, scalable, and still feel personal to the customer. Our customer experience mission is to “win every customer and never lose one!”

Evolving Customer Expectations in Energy Services

Customer expectations come down to one core principle: Do what you say you will do.

How we deliver on that has evolved. Customers expect timely, relevant communication that fits into their day. Whether through email, text, or other channels, it needs to be easy, helpful, and consistent.

We focus on meeting customers where they are and making every interaction feel straightforward and valuable. If something does not improve the customer experience and save time operationally, we take a step back and validate its purpose before moving forward.

Aligning Frontline Experience with Business Strategy

Finding or creating real business value before investing time or resources is critical.

If we do not know why we are doing something, we pause until we get the why. Every investment needs a return. We also place strong importance on arriving at the final outcome together. Success is not just the result. It is making sure the team comes with us through the change.

In CX, success shows up in three ways:

• Gaining new customers

• Strengthening relationships with existing customers

• Improving the experience over time for both customers and team members

We stay aligned through clear roles and responsibilities, using frameworks like Agile, Lean, and RACI, while maintaining a focused, value-driven approach. Communication remains consistent, and teams understand how their work connects to the bigger picture.

When everyone understands the direction and the reason behind it, execution becomes stronger and more unified.

Key Advice for Emerging Leaders

Set aside traditional labels like B2C and B2B and focus on H2H, Human to Human.

Take the time to truly understand your customers. Listen closely, observe behaviors, and learn what matters most to them. That understanding allows you to anticipate needs, respond with empathy, and introduce change in a way that feels natural.

Strong customer relationships drive retention, attract new customers, and reduce wasted effort. When you focus on what matters, you move faster, stay lean, and make better decisions.

The feedback cycle is vital. Listen, act, measure, refine, and repeat.