How Braskem used behavioral data to build digital experiences in a relationship-driven industry

For decades, buying petrochemicals worked the same way: phone calls, emails, spreadsheets, and long-standing relationships.

So when Braskem—the largest petrochemical company in the Americas—set out to create a digital customer platform, the challenge wasn't just building software. It was changing behavior.

"We weren't competing with other platforms," said Larissa Salerno, Product Strategy Manager at Braskem. "We were competing with comfort."

That reality shaped Bridge, Braskem's digital customer platform. Designed to bring ordering, shipment tracking, documentation, and account information into a single self-service experience, Bridge aimed to make it easier for customers to do business with Braskem. But creating a digital channel in a traditional industry required more than modern technology. It required understanding how customers actually worked within the platform.

Moving beyond assumptions

Before adopting Pendo, Braskem had limited visibility into customer behavior. The team could see who logged in, but not what users did once they arrived.

Customer feedback provided some clues. Account managers gathered insights through conversations, and surveys offered directional signals. But the team lacked a clear view of how customers interacted with Bridge at scale.

Pendo changed that.

As Braskem began analyzing behavioral data, the team discovered something unexpected: not every problem lived inside the product.

Patterns that initially appeared to be user experience issues often pointed to operational gaps, long-standing processes, or customer behaviors that had existed for years but remained hidden.

"One of the first learnings for us was that not every problem lived in the product," Salerno explained. "Sometimes the gap lives in the process."

The insight fundamentally changed how the team approached product decisions. Instead of relying solely on interviews or assumptions, they could combine behavioral data with customer conversations to understand what was actually happening.

When customer behavior proves you wrong

One of Braskem's most important discoveries came from a shipment tracking feature.

The team introduced tracking capabilities directly into customer order lists. Each order line included a tracking button, allowing customers to follow deliveries as they moved through the supply chain.

The assumption seemed straightforward: customers with the highest order volumes would use tracking the most.

The data told a different story.

Smaller customers who managed a handful of orders each month regularly used the feature. High-volume customers rarely did. When the team dug deeper, the reason became clear.

Tracking five or ten orders individually was manageable. Tracking 200+ orders one line at a time wasn't.

Rather than lacking interest, Braskem's largest customers lacked time."It wasn't about building more functionality, it was about building for the right context," said Salerno. The data showed that the feature wasn’t fitting into the bigger customers’ workflows. 

Designing for the job to be done

Armed with behavioral insights from Pendo, Braskem paired product data with customer interviews, conversations with account managers, and discussions with customer service teams.

The goal wasn't simply to improve a feature. It was to understand what customers were trying to accomplish.

The team learned that customers approached shipment visibility with different needs depending on the situation. Sometimes they needed a quick status update across multiple deliveries. Other times they were researching a specific shipment on behalf of a supply chain team.

To support those different contexts, Braskem reimagined the experience.

Instead of requiring customers to click into individual orders, the team introduced a visual delivery dashboard directly on the Bridge homepage. Delivery status became visible at a glance. Delays were color-coded. Customers could immediately identify what required attention without searching through dozens or hundreds of orders.

Information no longer required multiple clicks to find—it was simply there.

As Salerno explained during Pendomonium, "Changing a feature is easy. Changing a habit in a very traditional relationship-driven industry was a challenge."

Turning engagement into business impact

The new experience changed how customers interacted with Bridge.

Previously, many high-volume customers downloaded large datasets and managed shipment information in spreadsheets. After the redesign, users increasingly stayed within the platform because the information they needed was already organized and accessible.

More importantly, Braskem gained confidence that product decisions were rooted in evidence rather than assumptions.

Behavioral data helped the team identify friction points, uncover process issues, validate design decisions, and scale customer understanding far beyond what interviews alone could provide.

The impact has extended across the business.

Today, approximately 40% of Braskem's global revenue flows through digital channels. In 2025, the company associated more than $5 billion in revenue with the platform, supporting roughly 130,000 ecommerce orders across more than 2,300 users and 1,000 customers.

Building trust, one experience at a time

Braskem's journey offers an important reminder for product teams in any industry.

Behavioral data isn't just about optimizing clicks or improving conversion rates. It helps teams understand people—their habits, workflows, and motivations.

For Braskem, that understanding made it possible to create digital experiences in an industry where many believed customers would never adopt them.

The breakthrough didn't come from a revolutionary feature or a major launch. It came from consistently listening to what the data was saying—and designing for the reality of how customers work.