Investing in CX is driving business-wide results: report

Our latest Datacom report The State of CX in Australia and New Zealand draws on a survey of more than 450 CX decision-makers from companies across Australia and New Zealand, and around 500 consumers. The survey, commissioned through Tech Research Asia, explored what consumers want from their experiences with businesses, and asked businesses how they were tracking against the CX goals, where they were succeeding and where they thought there was room for improvement.

Customers identified their top two priorities when dealing with businesses as easy access and friendly staff. Ideally, they also want faster response times, more personalised service, and loyalty programmes.

“People told us what they really wanted was easier access to customer support,” says xx xxx xxx. “Consumers want a phone number on your website, short waiting times, and real, helpful humans answering the phone.”

Companies across Australasia are working hard to achieve a better customer experience, and the results are driving improvements across organisations. The State of CX report found that more than half of companies saw their CX improvements result in ‘strong’ or ‘medium’ improvements to wider business success. Improvements included:

• Greater overall business success
• Higher per-customer revenue
• Better customer service performance
• Improved customer retention and acquisition
• Greater security
• Improved innovation
• Better cost management

Only 40% of the companies we surveyed have dedicated CX teams, and only 30% had a dedicated CX leader – we expect to see these numbers increase in future.

Making CX decisions, with or without a dedicated CX leader, relied on a tapestry of different factors. In Australia, the most influential CX decision-making factor was customer feedback, while in New Zealand it was skills availability – indicating the greater difficulty in attracting talent for Kiwi organisations. Companies in both nations rated security and innovation as other influential factors.

More than half of companies (52% in Australia; 63% in New Zealand) told us their CX business strategy is either market-leading or mature effective. A similar number felt confident they understood their customers (59%; 58%) and were satisfied with their systems and technologies (49%; 60%).

The average employee wastes 5.75 hours a week on CX activities, which translates into significant potential losses for businesses. Across 20 employees, the wasted time adds up to 115 hours each week, equivalent to nearly three full-time employees.

“We asked how companies thought they could prevent these wasted hours, and their top response was AI and automation,” says Lou Compagnone, Director of AI. “AI solutions can streamline the experience for both customers and employees, and it can free people up to do more valuable complex problem-solving.”

Companies are working fast to adopt AI for CX, with around a quarter in a production phase with generative AI. This was a six-fold increase on 2023 and reflects the rapidly-changing CX environment. How do consumers feel about the increasing role of AI? An encouraging 50% of consumers said they felt positive about the use of AI in their interactions with companies.

A low number – just 18% – of businesses felt that their call centre had deep integration with other CX-related departments, so this is another area where technology could provide some important wins.

More than half of companies told us they are planning to make significant changes to their CX strategy in the year ahead: 52% in Australia and 62% in New Zealand. We asked respondents whether they were tracking towards their strategic CX goals and found that 72% said they were on or ahead of schedule, and 55% were on or under budget.

CX training, however, was an area where CX decision-makers felt they had work to do.

“Businesses on both sides of the ditch told us that training their CX employees was more urgent, and would have a bigger impact, than any other technology or CX activity,” says xxxxx xxxx. “Training was also one of the top choices for ways to reduce wasted time, second only to AI and automation. I think we’ll see CX team training as an area for investment in 2025.”

Based on the report, Gray says he’s also expecting to see more companies shift from on-premises contact centres and customer support to cloud-based services.

“Across Australasia we’re seeing companies invest in the technology they need to deliver increasingly excellent customer experiences – and that’s really delivering great results for them,” says xxx xxx. “There are still areas for improvement, though, and one of those is the human factor. Ultimately CX is about making a high-quality connection with your customer: active listening, kindness and honesty. Having a team with these qualities will make all the difference to how customers feel about your brand.”