Takes bold new steps to relaunch its Consumer Engagement Centre
Colombo September 02, 2021: Unilever Sri Lanka, one of the largest fast-moving consumer goods companies in the island, has relaunched its Consumer Engagement Centre in partnership with Scicom Lanka, a leading technology and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company in the country, to offer improved, premium and customised services to its consumers and customers. In support of its ambition to contribute to a fairer and more socially inclusive world, Unilever has embraced differently abled 3rd party staff at its new Consumer Engagement Centre, reinforcing its agenda to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
To facilitate the needs of these differently abled 3rd party employees with walking disabilities, Unilever has invested heavily behind supporting infrastructure and provided comprehensive work from home facilities. The revamped Consumer Engagement Centre is a digitally enabled, omni channel consumer support system and remains the only call center in Sri Lanka’s FMCG sector with a universal toll-free short code (1323). It consists of an easily contactable and highly specialised team to assist consumers and customers with relevant and accurate information, addressing their concerns on time and in full.
Commenting on this achievement in diversity and inclusion, Ananya Sabharwal, Human Resources Director – Unilever Sri Lanka said, “We celebrate our employees for who they are and have been striving over the years to create an inclusive environment where our people can truly collaborate beyond all differences. From our frontline employees to our leadership team, we are proud and humbled that we have been able to embrace people from all walks of life no matter their background, increase gender balance, and now also create an opportunity for differently abled employees to join our ecosystem. We recently launched several inclusive policies such as Fertility Cover, Domestic Violence Support and Special Wellbeing Leave, and we look forward to continue sharing and learning with other organisations in Sri Lanka who would like to join us on this wonderful journey of creating a diverse and inclusive Sri Lanka.”
Speaking of the relaunch, Sukitha Premaratne, Consumer Engagement Center, Country Lead – Unilever Sri Lanka said, “With an ambition to be Sri Lanka’s leading futuristic demand generation centre, we have been providing engaging consumer & customer experiences over the past two decades, touching over 1,000 people every day. We couldn’t be more excited to come onboard with Scicom to help us come one step closer to achieving this ambition with a new team of diverse and talented individuals.”
Adding his thoughts, Chandan Agarwal, Consumer Market Insights (CMI) Director – Unilever Sri Lanka & People Data Centre (PDC) Cluster Director – South Asia said, “At Unilever, our consumers have always been our number one priority. It is their insights that enable us to offer products and services that cater to the ever changing needs and wants of our consumers year on year. Now, more than ever, it has become imperative that we respond with speed and agility. This is why our improved Consumer Engagement Centre will help us stay ahead of the curve by redefining consumer engagement through a unique, diverse and inclusive team that possesses strong product knowledge, business acumen, problem solving skills, empathy, a friendly attitude and all the other traits required to provide a premium service to our consumers.”
Unilever Sri Lanka has over the years driven several initiatives to create an equitable workplace, with several policies, procedures and practices in place to offer fair opportunities, information and resources to its employees. The company has already achieved 50/50 gender diversity globally and is striving to reach this goal locally. Currently 55% of its Management Committee are women, 31% of its workforce are females, its baby cologne manufacturing plant is fully operated by women and most recently it introduced its first ever female shopfloor employees at its Horana manufacturing facility.