Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are no longer optional in today’s workplace - they are foundational to creating strong, innovative, and resilient teams. At the upcoming Customer Contact Week (CCW) event, an expert panel featuring Jacqueline Karam, Contact Centre Manager, P&N Bank, Renee Moore, Head of Customer Service, Bega Group, Sean Richards, Head of Customer Care & Contact Centre, Meridian Energy and Aneta Field, Senior Manager: Customer Support, Honey Insurance will explore actionable strategies for fostering diverse and inclusive workplaces.

Innovation lies at the heart of every successful modern contact centre. As customer expectations continue to evolve, organisations must adopt forward-thinking strategies to stay ahead. Ahead of our highly anticipated #CustomerContactWeek panel discussion, Driving Innovation in Contact Centres: Strategies for Success, we sat down with our panellists to explore their perspectives on what’s driving change in the industry today.

Turn your CX ambitions into action by overcoming these five persistent CX challenges Despite growing recognition of the value of customer experience (CX), many CX practitioners are struggling to turn ambition into action because of persistent challenges and obstacles. Research for the latest Global State of CX report revealed the top five key challenges that are holding back progress. Tackling these issues is not only vital for enhancing customer satisfaction but also for driving tangible business outcomes. Here, we break down each challenge, exploring why they are so persistent and what CX leaders can do to navigate them successfully.

At Customer Contact Week (CCW) Australia and New Zealand 2025, the spotlight is not only on our 10th anniversary milestone but on the powerhouse of brands and leaders gathering on the Gold Coast this March. With early-bird registrations closing this week, it’s your chance to be part of Australia’s largest customer contact event and hear from the industry’s brightest minds.

Imagine this: 74% of customers say they would switch brands after a single poor service experience. In today’s competitive market, the contact centre is not just a service function - it’s the heart of the customer experience. So, how can you ensure your contact centre delivers the seamless, personalised service your customers expect? That’s the challenge we’re addressing at the 10th Annual Customer Contact Week (CCW) ANZ, taking place at The STAR on the Gold Coast, 4-6 March 2025.

The future of customer experience (CX) is being reshaped by evolving technologies and shifting consumer habits. To stay relevant, businesses must adapt swiftly. Our latest eBook – The Future of CX by CX Network – delves into the key trends shaping the CX landscape, featuring insights from industry leaders like McDonald's and AB InBev.

CCW 2024 is a wrap! Last month (Feb 28th - Mar 1st), we welcomed over 250 contact centre professionals to the Gold Coast for three days of content deep-dives, interactive sessions and networking.

Our CCW Event Director Alexandra Craggs 爱丽 recently caught up with Lauren Reid, Chief Customer Officer at Navy Health to discuss #contactcentre trends, #transformation, #growth and #leadership

In an era where customer expectations are sky-high and technology evolves at breakneck speed, staying ahead in the customer contact field is more crucial than ever. As we look towards 2024 (and the decade beyond), several key trends are set to redefine the landscape of customer interaction in Australia and New Zealand.

Our CCW Event Director Alexandra Craggs recently caught up with Bart Taylor, Former Executive General Manager: Operations at Gallagher Bassett to discuss #contactcentre trends, #digitisation, #automation and #transformation

Our CCW Event Director Alexandra Craggs recently caught up with Darren Randall, Product Owner: Health Insurance at Bupa Australia to talk all things #GenAI and customer contact ahead of his session at the 2024 Customer Contact Week ANZ Summit.

The expectations of Australian customers are changing fast, and your customer service arm must be a fast-moving engine to keep up. As our world becomes more connected, your customers expect more touchpoints and real-time interactions with your company.

In this landscape, competition for customer retention is fierce. Fast resolution time is no longer a competitive advantage. Customers expect empathy from your customer service agents, and they want to interact with companies that enact their values, not just shout about them.

With the Australian government opening up borders across all states and a travel bubble with our New Zealand neighbours in the works, 2021 may finally allow us to see that sense of normality we’ve been craving over the last 12 months.

Welcome to the new year and the new decade. This is a milestone to make sure your experience is on track and resolve to fix the areas where it might not be up to snuff. In fact, Gartner found that while only 36% of companies competed on customer experience in 2010, that number went up to two-thirds by 2018. And it’s only increasing as we enter the 2020s.

Business leaders understand that having happy and loyal advocates is the result of a thriving customer experience practice. Looking from the outside-in, how do you cultivate an employee experience that creates happy, productive and loyal team members? That’s the $11 billion question.

Here are three elements that, when executed properly, have a positive impact on the experiences your customers have with your brand.

In a white paper with the SAP Digital Interconnect group, “The Critical Role of CPaaS in Reaching Customers on their Channels of Choice,” Ovum referred to communications-platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) as a “quiet revolution” for customer experience professionals.

Revenues from CPaaS are projected to grow to $5.2 billion in 2023, and 67 percent of enterprises expect CPaaS to have an impact on their organization within the next three to five years. But what exactly is CPaaS? And what are the benefits of CPaaS for your business?

Customer service leaders must ensure they are able to operate with agility in today's uncertain market. The benefits include: 

• Safeguarding Full-Time employees

• Maintaining Customer expectations

• Reduced Attrition and boosted Retention.

We spoke with an industry expert to find out how he makes sure he is able to "Right-Size" his team during surge periods and throughout seasonal peaks

Tribal knowledge is not a new concept, everybody knows that when 1 Million dollars is on the line, it’s best to phone a friend.

So, it's only natural that in the Contact Centre - a melting pot of high-pressure situations and the need for instantaneous answers - that the 'Ask a Colleague Culture' thrives.  There is heavy reliance on the “expert” to solve all those tricky problems. Sound familiar?  Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

As we head into 2020, we surveyed leaders in the contact center, marketing, customer experience and IT this year to hear about their predictions for the contact center of 2025 for our Market Study on the Contact Center of 2025: A Road Map.

Here’s a sneak peek into the four most surprising findings

I sat down in a conference room the other day to interview Carl Smit and began firing off detailed questions, just so i could see how he would react or what stories he would tell. I’d conducted a great deal of research on him and knew his experiences and insights wouldn’t disappoint my curiosity. 

In one way or another, Smit managed to revert every question I asked on marketing strategies and retail experiences (whether it be brick-and-mortar or ecommerce) back to one word: omnichannel.

As consumers are enjoying more buying power now than ever, make no mistake - the importance of topics like creating personal experiences and reducing customer effort are no secret.

But it’s up to the emerging role of the CCO to strategically amplify components of CX, like interpreting customer insights to aid innovation, drive retention and encourage growth.

In preparation for CCW Australia, we wanted to take a look at a couple successful CCOs (courtesy of IQPC Australia) that highlight the emergence and importance of what it means to be Chief Customer Officer.

An organization can embrace a vision of customer centricity. It can hire talented customer service representatives.  It can invest in a plethora of innovative tools and technologies.

These positive qualities are for naught, however, if the organization does not have great leadership.

We've identified the 10 skills all great contact center leaders need. Highlighted are the qualities that help distinguish true contact center leaders from mere managers.