FOCUS | CSIA Quarterly - November 2022

CSIA Quarterly November 2022

A Night to Remember All the highlights and winners from the 2022 Australian Service Excellence Awards.

Which brands have Australia’s most satisfied customers?

CSIA has released the 2022 Australian Service Index

A Secure Choice We talk to Wilson Security about how they have differentiated themselves from their competitors through customer focus.

Welcome to the spring ‘22 edition of FOCUS What an amazing night last week at the Australian Service Excellence Awards!

It was very humbling for all of us at CSIA to be joined by hundreds of people from around Australia to celebrate service excellence.

And what a celebration. I can’t recall such energy and emotion in 12 years of attending the annual gala.

Congratulations to all finalists, service champions, service heros and winners. Your achievements are extraordinary and you all deserve the national recognition from the Awards program.

Luke Jamieson shares how organisations are creating positive customer experiences through enhancing employee engagement, and Paul Smith explains the challenges in the current recruitment environment and strategies to attract and retain team members.

And we also hear about building contact centre capacity from Brad Beumer, whilst Tahn Shannon, shares how leading companies are merging customer and employee experiences to thrive.

My very best wishes for all members as we race towards the end of the year.

In this issue of FOCUS we review the Awards and share all the winners and some of what was said on the night.

We also talk to Janine Hill from Wilson Security about how the security industry has evolved and how customer focus is elevating Wilson to the peak of their industry.

The Australian Service Index has arrived! We reveal the brands with our nation’s most satisfied customers and share some of the key insights we’ve learned from talking to 10,000 Australians.

Jeremy Larkins Executive Director

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Contents

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2022 Australian Service Excellence Awards Gala

We review the 2022 ASEA Gala and show you all the winners.

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A Secure Choice

Janine Hill from Wilson Security tells how a customer service focus helps their business to excel.

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2022 Australian Service Index

CSIA reveals the brands with the most satisfied customers in Australia 20

How to get added capacity into your Contact Centre

Brad Beumer explores how intelligent automation can support your customers, boosting the employee experience and improving the customer experience.

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Creating Frontline Success

CSIA talks to Luke Jamieson about how organisations are creating a great employee experience to support a positive customer experience.

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CX and EX are one

Tahn Shannon, shares how leading companies are merging customer and employee experiences to thrive.

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Meeting Recruitment Challenges

Paul Smith shares his thoughts on overcoming the challenges of the current recruitment environment 28

Member Spotlight

The 2022 Australian Service Excellence Awards Gala

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The 2022 Australian Service Excellence Award winners were announced on Thursday 27 October at The Fullerton Hotel in Sydney at a glamourous black-tie dinner and celebration hosted by perennial awards favourite, Michael Pope.

CSIA’s Executive Director, Jeremy Larkins congratulated all finalists for choosing to recognise their hard work in creating and delivering exceptional customer experiences and thanked the over 450 attendees for joining CSIA to celebrate service excellence from across Australia.

The Hon Victor Dominello MP attended as CSIA’s guest of honour and he presented the

2022 Best of the Best award to The Hospitals Contribution Fund (HCF). In winning this award HCF have become the first organisation to be named Best of the Best on two occasions – their previous being in 2013.

Adam Centorrino also made history by becoming the first person to win the Customer Service Executive of the Year on two occasions, repeating his victory from 2021.

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CSIA’s awards partners contributed to a fun night with ServiceNow supplying a very popular photobooth, UiPath had everyone cheering at their reaction board, Citrus Group gave away door prizes and Centrical awarded Melanie Thompson from Service NSW and winner of the Customer Service Professional of the Year with a brand-new apple watch.

CSIA invited awards presenters from ASEA judges, Awards Partners and ASEA alumni including Andrew Carton (Best of the Best – American Express in 2015); Marina Murray (Customer Service Advocate of the Year in 2011) and Aoife Roche (Customer Service Manager of the Year in 2018).

2022 saw another record number of entrants in the awards program and featured three firsttime finalists: Cargo Crew, Brighte and Fathom who won their respective categories.

“It’s an absolutely wonderful recognition of a lot of hard work, not just for me but for all of the people that have supported me along the way as well.” said Helen Crossan from BT Financial Group and winner of Customer Service Manager of the Year.

This year the Awards were a double celebration of both service excellence and CSIA’s 25th anniversary with Sydney band The Unusual Suspects leading the party late into the night.

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2022 Australian Service Excellence Awards Winners Organisations Best of the Best

Customer Service Team of the Year (Large)

Winner: The Hospitals Contribution Fund of Australia Limited (HCF)

Winner: Yarra Valley Water - Customer Care, Retail Services Service Champion: Keolis Downer Adelaide - Customer Experience Team

Customer Service Organisation of the Year (Large) Winner: The Hospitals Contribution Fund of Australia Limited (HCF) Service Champion: Aussie Broadband Customer Service Organisation of the Year (Medium) Winner: Centorrino Technologies Service Champion: Jaybro Group Customer Service Organisation of the Year (Small) Winner: Fathom Service Champion: Sleeping Duck Customer Service Organisation of the Year (Government / Not-For-Profit)) Winner: Service NSW Service Champion: National Heavy Vehicle Regulator

Customer Service Team of the Year (Medium) Winner: Smartgroup Corporation - Vehicle Sales Team Service Champion: Blue Connections IT - Enterprise Service Desk (ESD) Customer Service Team of the Year (Small) Winner: Suncorp - SA CTP, Early Intervention Team Service Champion: Centorrino Technologies - Customer Experience (CX) Team Customer Service Project of the Year (Service Transformation) Winner: NSW Government Department of Customer Service - Digital Channels OneCX Program Service Champion: Downer Defence - Portable Laundry Solutions

Service Excellence in a Large Contact Centre

Customer Service Project of the Year (Service Innovation)

Winner: Woolworths - Woolworths Customer Hub Service Champion: BT Financial Group - Customer Relations

Winner: Brighte - Kate 'AI' Agent Service Champion: Sydney Water - Digital Customer Platform (DCP)

Service Excellence in a Medium Contact Centre

Customer Service Project of the Year (Continuous Improvement)

Winner: Centorrino Technologies - CT Service Desk Service Champion: Australian Red Cross Lifeblood National Contact Centre Service Excellence in a Small Contact Centre Winner: Cargo Crew - Client Service Team Service Champion: Sleeping Duck - SDHQ - Customer Experience Team

Winner: Wilson Security - CAMPUS Customer Service Excellence Program Service Champion: City of Melbourne - Enhancing Customer Service Metrics That Matter Customer Service Project of the Year (Customer Impact) Winner: Transdev Sydney Ferries - Accessible Transport Action Plan Service Champion: Aussie Broadband - Fault Detector project

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Individuals Customer Service Advocate of the Year Winner: Emma Millar – Technology One Service Hero: Leeanne Wrigley – Woolworths Customer Service Professional of the Year Winner: Melanie Thompson - Service NSW Service Hero: Shahbaz Shaikh - HP PPS Pty Ltd Australia Customer Service Leader of the Year Winner: Tate Burford - Suncorp Service Hero: Sitoe Faumui - Service NSW Customer Service Manager of the Year Winner: Helen Crossan - BT Financial Group Service Hero: Mark Valana - Smartgroup Corporation Customer Service Executive of the Year Winner: Adam Centorrino - Centorrino Technologies Service Hero: Allicia Tsolis - Suncorp

“Winning this award means so much, it means that the work and all of the passion that we put in each and every day to help our customers, that it’s all working, that we are doing the right thing.”

- Melanie Thompson, Service NSW (Customer Service Professional of the Year)

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Thank You CSIA would to thank all those who have supported the 2022 Australian Service Excellence Awards program and Awards Gala Dinner Presentation.

Michael Pope – MC The Hon Victor Dominello M.P – Guest of Honour Anita Bowtell – 2022 ASEA Co-Lead Judge Danielle Larkins – 2022 ASEA Co-Lead Judge Jay Wane – CSIA ASEA Production Manager Dovetail Brand Engagement – Event Production

2022 ASEA GUEST JUDGES Andrew Carlton Anita Bowtell Aoife Roche Brianna Owers Charlotte Whyatt Danielle Larkins Deidrie Wilson Jay Wane Joe Salah Judith Lee Kate Kerr Kim Honor

Kylie Dunphy-Brown Luke Jamieson Marina Logozzo Mark Prior Megan Everleigh Mei Lian Tan Peter Merrett Richard Whybrow Sabeena Parween Susan Blain Todd Gorsuch Tony Pescott

2022 ASEA PARTNERS

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A SECURE CHOICE One of the leaders in the Australian market, Wilson Security has been providing integrated security solutions for clients since the 1960s. Here we talk to Janine Hill, General Manager Customer Experience and Markets at Wilson Security, about how the security industry has changed since the company’s inception, and how Wilson Security consistently excels in the provision of security solutions.

Wilson Security has an enviable reputation as one of the leaders in the security market; how important is that reputation when it comes to attracting and retaining clients, as well as providing a positive customer experience?

Firstly, thank you. We have worked hard to build a business that is trusted by our people, clients, and the communities in which we operate. Our valued clients include operators of Australia’s most high risk or sensitive locations to biggest brands with large scale requirements and leaders within their own markets. When a customer chooses to partner with Wilson Security, they enter a long-lasting relationship built on experience, responsiveness, and a companywide ethos to deliver enduring value.

Our financial stability and investment in a service offering underpinned by a greater focus on compliance, social purpose and corporate and environmental responsibility protects our people and reputation and ultimately delivers a positive customer experience for our clients. Our reputation as a market leader not only attracts

and helps to retain a client base reflective of the type of businesses we want to work with, but also attracts the right kind of people we want delivering our service. We recognize the work we have done to build this reputation indirectly effects our customers in a positive way and challenges the sector to think differently about how they look after their people.

How much of the focus at Wilson Security is on the customer?

Our customers are our priority and as one of our company values, every customer matters.

It is important to Wilson Security that our customers have an exceptional experience at every touch point throughout our business whether it be from an electronic interaction with our finance team, a phone call with our National Operations Centre after normal business hours or directly with the team delivering our service in the field. Our leadership encourages innovative and design thinking to deliver value add solutions tailored to the needs of our customer.

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At Wilson Security, we believe a strong culture of customer service starts with our people on the frontline and as leaders, we know it is how we serve our people by being highly compliant and care for them, provide pathways to develop, encourage and engage with them will truly determine the level of service our people will deliver to our customers. All customer service excellence training programs developed in collaboration with the CSIA and made available to our employees start with a clear message from our CEO, Nick Frangoulis. Nick’s message outlines how important customer service is to our business and how important each team member is to ensuring we achieve excellent customer service outcomes for our customers.

Wilson Security has been delivering internal training programs through the CSIA Service Excellence Academy since 2018. How much have these programs helped shape the customer service that Wilson Security provides to clients?

Customer Service Excellence training is a key element of our value proposition to retain and grow our client portfolio within many market sectors from corporate real estate and universities to Defense and hospitals.

We receive excellent feedback from our clients who have experienced this training within their contract, and we have a lot of interest from other clients to implement similar sector-based training and further enhance the customer service excellence of staff on their sites. The performance of our security team can have a direct impact on our clients ability to operate or compete with their peers and the service they provide can see an increases in customer

advocacy, retention and growth Through this program and other innovation initiatives encouraged throughout Wilson Security, we continue to build service excellence and trusted relationships with clients in the university sector.

What are the golden rules of providing customer service at Wilson Security?

Wilson Security directly employs 6,500 licensed security personnel to work on the frontline daily across every state and territory in Australia.

These essential workers are integral to keep Australia safe and as such, our core business is to provide safety and security for our customers and this remains the primary purpose of any customer service focus at Wilson Security.

As part of the Wilson Security business, employees are guided by the company values of integrity, innovation, leadership and most importantly, customer; all team members work hard to understand the needs of the people they serve and remain attentive to the service they provide with ongoing training and knowledge sharing. From management to frontline, the company has built a culture of exceptional customer service underpinned by an unwavering focus to protect the client, people and property.

Wilson Security’s people first approach extends to every part of its operations. People first isn’t just about the staff and colleagues, it’s about every interaction with people on the job. All staff are encouraged to deliver a service which consistently meets the values and expectations

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of clients, internal and external. It also changes the historical perception of the security guarding industry to one which always puts the customer first.

How has the security industry changed since the company’s inception and how does Wilson Security stay ahead of the curve?

We have evolved into an Integrated Security Solutions provider and this strategy encourages a new way of thinking at every level. We have created a culture in which our teams collaborate more closely across states, business units and sectors, to share learnings and innovative ways of injecting enduring value into the service we provide to our clients. By combining our security resource with an agile technology offer and using a risk-based approach that ensure global best practice, our teams are encouraged to think innovatively about how we can achieve the client’s objectives for service efficiency, better contract performance or improved security outcomes.

Our focus on delivering a highly compliant service is also a key differentiator with an industry first and union endorsed code of practice introduced this year. We are leading the way in terms of responding to the Australian markets increasing focus on corporate social responsibility, diversity and inclusion and Indigenous Engagement. Our investment in an award-winning Innovation Council and Key Account Management Framework is unparalleled in the market from a value proposition perspective.

The strength of our organization complemented by our integrated offer and ESG value proposition allows Wilson Security to maintain our market leading reputation and recognized brand in the industry as well as a preferred supplier for many current and future clients.

Wilson Security has previously won the Customer Service Leader of the Year Award at the CSIA awards. How important are such accolades for team morale?

It is immeasurable! From working together as a team to build a nomination and the associated review of the events the lead up to this point, to the shared experience of success against not only our security industry peers, but the entire Australian business community is incredibly exciting. In the case of our very own Andrew Kahlil winning this award – it was developed on the quiet and it was such an enjoyable process for his peers, clients, and management team to contribute to this for Andrew, then to see how humble he was about just being nominated to being the winner was great for everyone involved. Andrew is a leader in the corporate real estate sector and his passion for delivering an exceptional experience for his customer and their customer was already award winning to Wilson Security!

What makes Wilson Security’s team of frontline service professionals leaders in the industry?

Our employee value proposition is an important aspect of our staff retention in an industry that is quite transient in nature. Our attrition levels significantly outperform industry standards, and we have long standing employees who value working for Wilson Security and this builds IP in an industry that is critical. Training and development, how we care about our peoples safety, how they get paid and overall job satisfaction, the work we do with CSIA and technology advancements we bring to their day to day like virtual reality training or AI and video analytics means our people have unparalleled access to ways of working at Wilson Security and are considered best jn class because of this.

We work with CSIA to achieve our essential customer service goals giving our frontline staff, team leaders, customer facing and customer enabling managers support with best-practice know-how, international recognition, and practical support, all from a globally recognised service standard. And then we measure our success by testing ourselves against our peers with award nominations like the Australian Service Excellence Award, client managed award programs or innovation challenges, the Australian Security Industry Awards and Outstanding Security Performance Awards or by asking our clients via NPS and feedback surveys.

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We make a point of operating with an agile mindset and respond to feedback with a continuous improvement philosophy as this allows us to constantly evolve the way we do things to better suit the needs of our clients. We share this feedback with our team and the market Wilson Security has been nominated for the Customer Service Project of the Year Continuous Improvement at the 2022 Australian Service Excellence Awards. How much do such nominations mean to your personally, and the company as a whole?

I am proud of our business for allowing our national training coordinator, Brent and I to invest in developing the program like this. We believe this is nomination is a good testament of our investment and the support from the business to really make a difference in a sector which is so important to Wilson Security from corporate social responsibility point of view and the strategic direction of the business to support the communities we operate in. For us, the nomination is a qualification we are

progressing in the right direction with our expanded employee journey through this project and also provides another opportunity to ask our clients for feedback and measure the change. I am delighted Brent especially is being recognised for his hard work Brent is a bit of an unsung hero at Wilson Security who is passionate about learning and development and creating new ways to share great messages or learning with our people.

Anything else to add?

Grateful for our platinum parentship with CSIA and all the benefits it brings to Wilson Security. It provides us with a great network of customer service professionals who inspire us to continuously improve the way we manage our people and our service.

Editor’s note:

Wilson Security was announced the winner of Customer Service Project of the Year Continuous Improvement at the 2022 Australian Service Excellence Awards on October 27, 2022

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2022 Australian Service Index The last two years have been especially challenging for organisations attempting to deliver great customer experiences. Since the beginning of COVID in early 2020: border closures, health restrictions, movement to remote working, adoption of new digital technology and the labour crunch making the job of deliver any customer service, let alone great customer service very difficult.

Against this challenging backdrop CSIA wanted to get a sense of how Australians think industry has gone in meeting this challenge.

We’re excited to launch the Australian Service Index study that focuses on understanding the current market perceptions of customer service delivery in the Australia, with a deep dive into customer service interactions in the key industries of automotive manufacturing, banking & finance, home insurance, TV / video streaming, betting, government services, mobile phone services, airlines / cruise lines, energy providers, superannuation funds, internet services, health insurance, NDIS providers, aged care providers and car insurance.

The report was developed using research conducted in March – April 2022 with over 10,000 Australians into their experiences in interacting with customer service departments from major industries.

For many customer service delivery has declined.

There’s no doubt the last couple of years have been challenging for organisations with government health restrictions, supply chain issues and significant issues around the availability of staff to meet organisation needs, including customer service delivery. Many organisations have been forced to adapt by integrating new technology and to accept labour supply from a tighter and more expensive market. This has led to impacts in service delivery. With four in ten Australians thinking customer service has worsened since COVID.

40% 34% 25%

Worse

Same

Better

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Australia’s Leading Brands by Customer Satisfaction Brand

Category

Net Satisfied

Bendigo Bank

Banking

96%

RAC

Home Insurance

96%

ING

Banking

91%

Carnival

Airlines & Cruise lines

90%

Mazda

Automotive

89%

Bank of Queensland

Banking

89%

Woolworths Insurance

Car Insurance

89%

ahm

Health Insurance

88%

BMW

Automotive

87%

Red Energy

Energy Providers

87%

Apia

Car Insurance

87%

Suncorp

Home Insurance

86%

RACQ

Home Insurance

86%

Stan

Streaming services

86%

Disney

Streaming services

86%

HESTA Super Fund

Superannuation

86%

Commonwealth Superannuation

Superannuation

86%

RACV

Car insurance

86%

But not all industries are the same when it comes to service delivery.

Many industries are meeting the challenge when it comes to providing good customer experience with our respondents ranking retail, hospitality and banking & finance ahead of the pack.

Retail Hospitality Banking and finance Telecommunications and…

Healthcare General ins urance Travel Utilities Automotive Health insurance Roadside Assis tance Government services Superannuation Personal services None / don't know

17% 12% 9% 7% 5% 4% 3% 2% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 17%

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For many industries there’s room for improvement With the telecommunications industry standing out with our participants as having the worst customer service. Followed by Government, Banking & Finance.

18%

Telecommunications

9%

Government

7% 7%

Banking and finance Retail

4% 4%

General ins urance Hospitality Internet providers Airlines Automotive sales Utilities Healthcare Real estate

2% 2% 2% 2% 1% 1% 14%

None / don't know Opportunities exist for customer focused organisations.

The research identifies a number of opportunities for customer centric organisations to better align their offering with customer expectations, particularly in the areas of; • • • •

Training and recognition Customer reviews Localised customer service Soliciting feedback

Training and rewarding staff seen as critical It seems Australians feel that customer service staff need to be supported via training programs with two-thirds of Australians think training is important in delivering good customer service. Australians also feel that customer service staff should be rewarded, with over 50% of Australians stating that it’s important to reward staff for good customer service.

Customer s ervice training

Rewarding staff

Personalising communications

8%

13%

25%

68%

33%

16%

Unimportant (0-6)

54%

38%

Important (7-8)

46%

Extremely important (9-10)

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Australians love to tell others about their experiences Australians are a vocal bunch with the majority of us likely to leave reviews about the customer experience they receive. With one in five Australians always or often leave a review for service they’ve received.

37% 28%

17%

14%

3% Always

Often

Occasionally

Rarely

Never

Interestingly Australians are more likely to leave a review for good service than bad service, with 60% of Australians likely to leave a review for good service vs 52% likely to leave a review for bad service.

But even though we’re more likely to leave a positive review than a negative one. Australians are likely to tell other people about their poor experience. With 48% of Australians stating that they always or often tell others about poor service.

31%

34%

17% 12% 5%

Always

Often

Occasionally

Rarely

Never

The lesson for organisations is that customers will tell others about there experiences. So, the best approach to tapping into and managing customer word of mouth is to provide customers with a managed pathway to leaving customer reviews.

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Local service delivery seen as key.

The research confirms that local service delivery is key for Australians, with almost nine in ten Australians feeling that having an Australian-based call centre is important.

57%

29%

12%

Very important

Important

Neither important nor unimportant

1%

1%

Unimportant

Very unimportant

And when it comes to identifying a service a new provider, more than half of Australians feel that having a local call centres are a good predictor of good customer service. This is strongly followed by good online reviews (41%) and recommendation by a friend or family member (36%)

They have Australian call centres

58%

They get good customer reviews online

41%

They've been recommended by a friend or family member

36%

They are a well-known brand

25%

They have won awards for customer service They have a form of business quality assurance / certification None of these

22% 12% 14%

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Not soliciting customer feedback, a missed opportunity Sadly, fewer than a third of participants report being asked for customer feedback from the organisations and brands that use. This is massive lost opportunity for organisations to create engaging feedback moments with customers and diagnostically fine tune their service offering to help retention and drive new business.

How did they seek feedback?

By survey

Didn’t elicit feedback 60%

40% of brands elicited feedback after contact

27%

Asked to leave review By follow up phone call

11% 2%

By face to face

1%

Another way

1%

About the Index This research was conducted by independent research agency Antenna in May 2022 with a nationally representative sample of n=10,124 Australians aged 18+ years The Index is distributed to Customer Service Institute of Australian corporate members with a summary index and report available for the public on CSIA’s website csia.com.au For more information, please contact CSIA on 1300 912 700 or info@csia.com.au

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How to get added capacity into your contact centre Brad Beumer, Customer Experience and Contact Centre Automation Lead at UiPath explores how intelligent automation can support your customers, boosting the employee experience and improving the customer experience.

Customer service remains one of the top ways customers interact with your brand. How you address customer complaints and challenges can leave a lasting impression — and customers demand better results the more they interact with you. More than half of all customers expect an improvement in customer service year-over-year, according to a recent survey.

This demand for more knowledgeable and personable agents comes at a time of upheaval and turnover for the industry. Contact centre turnover hovers between 30-45% and disruption caused by the pandemic didn’t help matters.

In this environment, many customer service centres are turning to technology to reduce the stress on their employees. Solutions such as robotic process automation (RPA) and AI are increasingly being deployed with existing channels to create an intelligent virtual agent to help customers solve difficult issues without the need to speak with a live agent. This can increase customer satisfaction and boost employee satisfaction and retention.

With automation and AI working together with existing service channels you can create an intelligent virtual agent available 24x7x365. This

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helps companies move the needle on metrics like self-service containment and call deflection. The ability to provide support at all hours increases customer satisfaction by eliminating the need to wait until normal business hours to call in. Reducing the number of calls can both reduce wait times and improve agent productivity by focusing their time on solving complex challenges. Finally, automation can improve the employee experience by easing the stress of your employees. This in turn can reduce turnover — essential at a time when many employees are short-staffed.

Here are three areas using automation can support your customers, increase productivity and improve employee experience.

customer to gather and provide updated information, the virtual agent can give everything back via automation to update the CRM as well as other systems.

When one clinic needed to check in on their patients to get updates on their COVID symptoms, they used UiPath automation together with their existing IVR. As the IVR read from a prepared script, robots were updating patient info in real time, freeing clinicians from having to speak to everyone and only focusing on those patients who needed immediate attention. Another health care company sought to use RPA and AI to expedite documentation completion, streamline bill payment and automate prescription refills.

Together, automation works to both help customers and help customers help themselves.

Help Customers Help Themselves One of the keyways intelligent virtual agents can assist your customers is by unlocking systems and processes that today require live agent assistance. Automation can unlock access to systems and data to allow customers to help themselves by allowing them to securely perform the same steps as a real agent. For example, a global fintech provider leveraged UiPath automation connected to their existing interactive voice response (IVR) system to automate common customer inquiries, eliminating around 10,000 calls per day to the contact centre.

Create a Proactive Engagement Model Customers have a multitude of different channels to engage businesses with, research shows that two-thirds still prefer to resolve issues over the phone, making phone service a key component of your customer service strategy. Virtual agents allow your company to move from a reactive to a proactive engagement model. For example, you can leverage automation when a customer needs to be contacted. Given a set of parameters, you can determine who should be called, when to call them and what should be said or asked.

Automation can provide this information to the virtual agent to place the actual outbound call.

Once your virtual agent interacts with the

Hand Off Tasks Much like your agents shouldn’t have to do everything themselves, neither should your virtual agents. Automation can complete a number of repetitive, low-level tasks to support your customers. The virtual agent can instruct robots to perform a number of background tasks, such as securely unlocking accounts, filing claims forms, starting loan applications, triggering fraud claim investigations, disputing transactions and many more.

As the labour market remains tight, many companies have turned to automation to improve customer service and reduce stress on their staff working in the contact centre.

Automation and AI can combine with new and existing self-service channels to form a virtual agent to handle routine customer service tasks.

Virtual agents can improve self-service containment rates, route calls more effectively, create a proactive engagement model and increase customer satisfaction by increasing the efficiency in which customer challenges are addressed.

To learn more, join Brad Beumer live on Tuesday 29 November at 10.00am AEDT for 30mins and will share use cases, how to get business buy-in to achieve added capacity in your contact centre. Register here

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Creating Frontline Success In a post-pandemic world, what are the key ways businesses need to pivot to keep productivity, output and customer satisfaction high, while maintaining employee well-being?

Employees are coming out of a difficult season and approaching work in the post-pandemic world will require businesses to focus on creating a strong workplace culture that provides a sense of belonging. Ultimately this will lend itself to engaged, productive employees who deliver strong customer experiences.

For many, productivity has been boosted thanks to the focus working from home can provide.

However, being away from the office has had an effect on team camaraderie and collaboration with many organisations concerned that employees no longer feel part of something bigger. This is driving some companies to force people back into the office which is raising challenges such as high attrition and quiet quitting.

Organisations need to emphasise how an individual's contributions connect to the broader purpose of the business and how the work being done adds meaning and impact and the following is the key to doing that:

Luke Jamieson, Regional Director at Centrical ANZ, talks to CSIA about how real-time performance management, microlearning, gamification and coaching can be a real gamechanger for creating a great employee experience to support a positive customer experience.

•

•

•

Create a sense of purpose: Companies should develop clear language around their mission, communicate it to employees, and invite them to be part of it.

Build a sense of meaning and impact: Companies need to value each employee’s skills, knowledge, and abilities, and let them use them to contribute in a meaningful way.

Celebrate individual achievements: There should be a healthy amount of celebration.

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•

•

•

individual goals and wins – even if they fall short of company goals.

Give employees a sense of progress: Progress is important for morale and productivity, so companies need to give their employees a sense of where they’re going.

Provide autonomy: Autonomy is the ability to make appropriate decisions over one’s scope of work, at any level in the company.

Give employees a sense of ownership: Leaders and managers need to sometimes be hands-off and let people make mistakes so that they continue to learn and grow.

Briefly explain how Centrical has real impact on engagement and company performance.

Centrical provides employees everything they need to be successful by showing them their real-time performance and motivating them with gamification and closing knowledge gaps with A.I. driven, personalised learning and coaching. The solution inspires and personally guides employee success and growth by making every moment actionable.

Why is it crucial to make employees the centre of business success?

The post-pandemic world continues to look different for a variety of reasons, because of both macro-scale economic reasons and personal life changes. There is already a dramatic labour shortage that is creating real challenges and opportunities in the workforce. Challenges for businesses to keep up operations, but also an opportunity to build the workplace culture of the future. Employees desire strong company culture because now, perhaps more than ever, there needs to be a clear purpose as to why someone would give their best.

How does this then translate into a better customer service experience?

Every customer experience starts with an employee experience. Engaged employees care about what they do, and invest more in selfdevelopment which is great for quality and efficiency, which in turn helps with delivering great customer experiences. Knowledgeable, brand-championing, loyal employees combined with happy, raving fan customers are the essence of a successful business

Is unlocking employee potential at the core of the Centrical platform?

Absolutely! As humans, we all have a thirst for learning but the thirst does not always drive us to quench it. Centrical nudges you to learn what you need when you need it with personalised micro-learning thanks to the AI in the platform and the advanced gamification in the platform helps keep you motivated and engaged healthily and sustainably.

Motivation is a key factor in employee performance success. What are some of the key ways the platform keeps motivation high?

Motivation can be broken down into two main categories: Extrinsic and intrinsic. I like to explain extrinsic as ‘loud’ but short lasting. Extrinsic rewards are tangible things that have a monetary value. They absolutely work in the short term for many employees but the results don’t tend to last long after the reward is provided and if the reward is constantly used as an incentive then the reward itself tends to have a depreciating effect. Intrinsic motivation on the other hand tends to be ‘quiet’ but has a much longer-lasting impact. Intrinsic rewards are intangible, personal development, opportunities, completion of meaningful tasks, autonomy and responsibility, a sense of competence and progress, the mastery of knowledge or skill and feeling pride in what one does.

Centrical are sponsoring this year’s Australian Service Excellence Awards. Why is it important to support awards that recognise the achievements of customer service experts?

Employee success translates to great customer experiences and successful business. So much of what we do is driven around supporting employees and managers to achieve their goals and recognise success at the moment of truth.

However, all those micro-recognitions should be building towards something bigger (a sense of achievement, progress and mastery) and the Australian Service Excellence Awards are the quintessence of that. As Centrical continues to grow in this region we want to support industry bodies that share similar values to centrical, just like CSIA.

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CX and EX are one …

Tahn Shannon, writes about how leading companies are merging customer and employee experiences to thrive.

The widespread shift to hybrid work has been a life-changer for employees and a gamechanger for employers. What was once considered a nice perk is now a basic requirement.

digital investments, prioritising lower costs and growth, AI-based tools and technologies that create outstanding experiences for employees and customers are at the top of their shopping lists.

At the same time, many Australians report their need for customer service increased during the pandemic. Yet many felt service experiences got worse.

In research commissioned by ServiceNow, AI expert Catriona Wallace predicts that as organisations move up the digital transformation maturity curve, the lines between customer and employee experiences will increasingly blur.

Some forward-thinking organisations are already moving in this direction. One leading food and beverage brand has merged its employee and customer support desks to deliver a simple and consistent experience to all its stakeholders. “I expect more companies will take a similar approach in future,” says ServiceNow Chief Innovation Officer Dave Wright.

RELATEDThe case for merging customer and employee experience Reimagining EX for public service AI is no longer just the domain of leading-edge innovators. Even historically conservative Australian organisations are investing in technologies such as robotic process automation and machine learning to transform experiences.

In a recent job listing for a data lab general manager, for example, Australia Post declared that its mission was to build an “AI-enabled’ postal service.

Whether they show up as employees or customers, people are generally united in what they want: speed, simplicity, and personalisation wherever and whenever they need it. As organisations struggle to meet new employee and customer expectations, artificial intelligence (AI) adoption has grown 15%.

Corporate spending on information technology is tipped to rise for a third straight year.

Gartner predicts that by 2024, organisations providing a unified customer and employee experience will outperform competitors by 25% in satisfaction metrics for both EX and CX. The Aussie experience equation Coming out of the pandemic, many Australian companies have boosted digital investments in response to global uncertainty and a major skills crisis. Yet just 16% of executives say they have a clearly defined strategy for digital, according to EY-Parthenon research.

CEOs worry that systems to improve organisational resilience are too complicated to implement. As a result, some of the country’s most complex businesses still rely on spreadsheets, email, and whiteboards. Although many managers focus primarily on revenue and customer satisfaction metrics, individual decisions made by employees will be the difference between business stagnation and growth.

Change has been forced upon a lot of institutions that have been operating much the same way for decades.

Today, great experiences separate leaders from laggards. As companies evaluate the return on

Over the next decade, we can expect Australian government agencies to focus on providing citizen services that match the convenience and flexibility of digital consumer experiences. This perspective was championed by Victor Dominello MP, state minister for customer experience and digital government in New South Wales, at ServiceNow’s recent Knowledge 2022 conference in Sydney.

The state’s Department of Customer Service is one of many government departments offering employees a single front door for IT, HR, payroll, and finance services as part of an effort to reimagine the way its people work. By automating manual tasks and improving outdated and clunky processes, the department aims to streamline EX,

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so employees can spend more time improving outcomes for citizens.

Until recently, outdated systems at the Australian federal Department of Industry, Science, Energy, and Resources, made it difficult and time-consuming for employees to make simple requests, says Steve Stirling, general manager of ICT operations. Even worse, the task of sorting and acting on requests involved sending countless emails to the relevant teams.

It was slow, repetitive work.

The Secrets to Creating the Ultimate Workplace Introducing a single, unified system has allowed requests to be automatically sorted, categorised, and assigned to the right people.

“We have improved our automation and streamlined a range of administrative tasks, allowing employees to do more important work” says Stirling. Digital transformation is only successful if it provides a better experience than before—and the only way to know that is by getting good feedback, explained Minister Dominello at ServiceNow’s recent Knowledge 2022 conference in Sydney.

“Traditionally, governments just didn’t want to know what people think—but you can’t elevate the citizen experience unless you understand it,” says Minister Dominello. “Now we’re actively inviting and providing easy channels to capture feedback—we really want to hear. It’s a massive culture shift.”

Show employees the front door When Westpac, Australia’s oldest bank, began simplifying HR service delivery, it had to rethink how the bank’s technology and service models were structured. The HR team identified many disconnected systems, overly complicated processes, and excessive manual work.

“We were dealing with 90,000 requests and 30,000 phone calls annually,” says Andrew Collett, employee experience lead at Westpac. “Critical information was scattered across intranets, SharePoint drives, and personal folders— employees were accessing help via front doors, back doors, and trap doors.”

The aim of the project was to help employees find what they wanted fast. With the first phase completed, Westpac has achieved a 26% reduction in HR service calls, enabling HR staff to spend more time on higher value work. “It all comes down to taking away the transactional, tactical, high-volume queries so that our employees can solve with self-service, wherever they are,” says Collett.

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Banking on time The beginning of the pandemic in 2020 exposed how National Australia Bank (NAB) needed a new way to interact with its employees. Almost overnight, its 30,000 workers shifted from office to working from home.

Without a formal HR technology strategy in place, the bank’s fragmented systems resulted in a 13% attrition rate for new job starters and exposed the bank to more than $280 million in potential risk.

Staff wanted to access data anytime, anywhere, but were hamstrung by manual, siloed processes. The bank realised that the experience created for colleagues needed to match what it offered to customers.

Solution: NAB created a unified experience for employees in HR, finance, facilities, or other workplace services that integrates with existing systems. The new experience was deployed entirely remotely within 14 weeks. As a result, employee self-service nearly tripled, cases raised by phone halved, and 83% of queries are now logged via digital channels.

EX and the bottom line Companies, employees, and customers have all faced significant hardships and change in the last few years. Investments in simple, secure, frictionless employee experiences are delivering real, quantifiable improvements in financial, talent retention, productivity, and customer satisfaction metrics. They also strengthen organisational resilience and insulate against external disruption.

Underwhelming experiences were never good for anyone, but the pandemic made digital-first experiences the default mode of interaction. In this new world, employees and customers will increasingly demand excellent digital experiences.

Tahn Shannon Workflow Contributor ServiceNow

Tahn Shannon is a Sydney-based communications strategist and writer. She’s spent nearly two decades working with business leaders at the intersection of industry disruption, innovation, and organisational change.

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CSIA FOCUS

Meeting Recruitment Challenges With more than 35 years working in recruitment, CEO at Citrus Group Paul Smith has a wealth of experience and expertise in the industry. Here, he explains the state of the current recruitment market, the challenges and strategies for hiring.

How would you describe the current recruitment market?

It’s challenging, to say the least. There has been a major shift toward choice for the candidate, which means speed to market is now more important than ever.

What are some of the challenges the recruitment industry faces right now?

An ever-shrinking candidate market, most candidates are now passive and are spread thin across all available roles. Client needs are increasing, however candidate availability is not.

All employers are struggling with attrition and looking to recruiters to solve this issue.

Attrition really is proving to be the next biggest challenge for employers outside of the shrinking candidate market. Companies are having to get creative on their EVP (Employee Value Proposition) and are looking to us for help with this.

How could these be overcome?

Tapping into and creating new talent pools, such as regional locations around Australia, also increased overseas talent (unfortunately, we have not seen a dramatic increase of travellers and students compared to pre COVID days).

Our clients need to articulate the EVP into their

organisation to differentiate them in the market. Flexibility is key when hiring. This covers salary, WFH (Work from home) or hybrid working models and the hours of work on offer.

Outline some key strategies for hiring the best staff in the current market.

Understanding what skills/attributes are critical to the role and what can be learned and/or developed to widen the candidate pool applying to the position.

With workforce movement high in the current climate, how important is it for employers to offer a strong yet flexible workplace culture?

Extremely important. If they aren’t offering it, someone else will be and the choice is there for a job seeker.

What do you believe are some of the driving factors to retaining quality staff?

A clear and precise introduction to the position, including what flexible arrangements are offered, a detailed and comprehensive induction and training program, making sure that whatever was discussed and offered in the initial interview is provided as agreed, including growth and development in the role and making sure the salary is competitive in this market.

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Do you expect tighter competition for employees as we move closer to Christmas?

Absolutely, most industries haven’t recovered from COVID with headcount, and the pressure to employ for Christmas will only increase that pressure.

Citrus is a major sponsor of the ASEA awards.

Why should we celebrate the achievements of those working in customer-facing businesses?

Working in a customer-facing environment is not easy and can be challenging to say the least. The ASEA awards provide those working in this industry the opportunity to be recognised and celebrate their achievements.

How rewarding is it for you personally to be able to assist local and international businesses develop and implement best practice for contact centre recruitment?

When you have been in the industry as long as we have you become a part of it, and it becomes second nature to you. You realise that over the past three decades you have assisted so many companies from setting up the first green fields call centres, to recruiting ticketing personnel for the 2000 Olympics through to recruiting for COVID help lines and essential services, we have learnt so much and assisted so many companies, this is personally gratifying and rewarding.

About Citrus Group Citrus Group, major sponsor of the ASEA awards for the past four years, is a market leader in the employment industry. It was established in 2013 to address an ongoing need for quality contact centre personnel and has a wealth of expertise in the recruitment, on-boarding, training and retention of contact centre personnel.

About Paul Smith Paul has worked in the recruitment industry for the past 35 years, with 10 years working in senior positions for global recruitment companies including, Drake International, Adecco, Kelly Services and Chandler McCloud Group.

He ran his own recruitment businesses with his partner, Gordana, for 25 years, setting up Telus, the first recruitment agency specialising in the recruitment of phone-based (call centre) customer service personnel in 1996.

Five years later, they sold to Chandler McCloud Group and in 2013 they set up Citrus Group based on a need they saw in the market for a specialised call centre recruitment company.

Today, Citrus Group is recognised as leaders in the recruitment of contact centre personnel and recruits thousands of people every year into the industry.

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CSIA FOCUS

Member Spotlight Nicholas DexterTissington Head of Client Services Zuellig Pharma SSG Australia

Chelsea Xu Senior Case Manager Gallagher Bassett

What was your first role in customer service?

What was your first role in customer service?

I used to work as a silver service waiter at a hotel, always got burnt by the trays!

I was a McDonald’s girl when I first started. I won many badges and was promoted to crew trainer.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

It is not what you do that defines you but how you do it!

Attitude, to have the right attitude! Customers are the ones who support the business/organisation financially; therefore, our wages are indirectly coming from our customers.

Supporting our customers is to support ourselves.

What is your proudest achievement in customer service?

My proudest achievement is not only that my past teams all achieved CS diplomas through their personal development but also that the same team achieved "best support office 2021" out of all of Europe.

What advice would you give to a person starting in their customer service career?

There are some low and some highs, you just have to look to the horizon and provide the customer the best experience you can regardless of the outcome.

What is the best thing about working in customer service?

No day will ever be the same and at each touch point you will take something from that experience and interaction.

What is your proudest achievement in customer service?

Prior to my current role, I had many years of experience in the healthcare sector and I worked with many aged and vulnerable people. My proudest achievement was being able to refer and guide them to the health services they desperately needed. I am proud because I made a positive impact on their lives.

What advice would you give to a person starting in their customer service career?

One of my favourite quotes is by Rabindranath Tagore, “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” Congratulations on the start of a joyful journey.

What is the best thing about working in customer service?

Being able to solve problems for the customers, and sometimes, I can also be inspired and learn from my customers.

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Adam Keast Head of Auxus Auxus

What was your first role in customer service?

Not long after leaving school I moved to Japan to teach English for 6 months. Having picked up a reasonable grasp of the language on returning to Australia I started working in hotels where there were plenty of Japanese guests that I could assist with my new language skills What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Always plan to leave early to ensure you have ample time to manage the unexpected. There’s nothing worse than running late for a flight, job interview, work or important meeting when a little bit of pre-planning can mitigate any issues along the way.

What is your proudest achievement in customer service?

I moved to Dubai in 2009 as the pre-opening Chief Concierge for InterContinental Dubai Festival City. I built a team of concierge who had never worked in the city before and we won the Concierge Team of the Year award, run by the Dubai Department of Tourism, in our first year of operation. This had never been achieved with such an inexperienced team.

What advice would you give to a person starting in their customer service career?

Never treat a customer query as an interruption, treat every customer query as an opportunity to create a WOW factor and exceed their expectations.

What is the best thing about working in customer service?

The sense of gratification of going above and beyond and creating experiences for your customer where they remember the interaction and most importantly your name.

Umesh Jayasinghe Manager – Life Union Assurance PLC

What was your first role in customer service?

I started my customer service career as a Customer Service Executive.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

During very early stage of my customer service career, this common phrase told by my manager during a team gathering hit me so hard – “Customer Service is not a department, it’s an attitude”.

What advice would you give to a person starting in their customer service career?

I always say – ‘Customer Service’ is not everyone’s job. You need to have certain special skills to be successful in customer service. But upon all, you need to have one fundamental attitude to be in customer service.

If you are stepping into customer service, the very first thing you need to have in you is to enjoy helping others. If you have this special quality, welcome to customer service. It’s your job.

What is the best thing about working in customer service?

For me, it’s all about self-satisfaction. The satisfaction of helping someone, making someone’s day with your smile and service, seeing them find a solution for their problems, your customers thank you smiles, notes etc. are priceless to me.

Being in customer service, you have the magic of ‘making someone smile’.

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