Customer Experience Excellence report 2024

Leading the customer experience in Australia, seven of the top 10 Australian brands are retailers.

Leading Australian retailers are delivering value through superior service, great experiences, exclusive access and lower prices. They are enhancing digital shopping and payments and focusing on omnichannel orchestration for seamless customer experience.

Through Voice of Customer programs, retailers in Australia are capturing holistic data for deeper, actionable insights. They are focusing on brand loyalty through customer personalisation and targeted engagement, driving repeat purchases and higher basket sizes. They are transforming physical stores and differentiating through their instore shopping experience.

Australian retail leaders are finding ways to reduce supply chain and operations costs for reinvestment in customer experience and offer value outside lower prices. They are embedding AI in customer experience to forecast demand, manage inventory, make predictive product recommendations and provide support.

Three of the top 10 Australian brands are financial services brands.

Financial services brands continue to invest in digital technologies, with several Australian brands developing AI-enabled customer service strategies for personalised customer experience, and better resolution of queries.

This year’s survey found the Australian financial services industry had improved its Empathy score, with a growth rate 30% higher than the national average. This can be attributed to a renewed focus on meeting customer service expectations during major events and hardships, increasing face-to-face services, providing richer and more targeted product education, and using Voice of Customer insights to identify and address issues.

Utilities providers in Australia are making focused gains in customer experience.

Although it continues to lag the national average, the sector has made considerable progress, reflecting ongoing transformation and a renewed focus on building customer trust.

The utilities sector has made improvements across all six pillars of customer experience excellence, most notably in its Integrity score, through efforts to build stakeholder and customer trust.

With continued change and growing competition, energy and water providers are seeking ways to invest in customer centricity for ROI, moving beyond ‘service to the meter’ to provide customer experience. These include innovative digital apps, self-service and omnichannel support, transparency in utility consumption, predicting and resolving outages and supporting vulnerable customers.

Water suppliers have shown strong performance as they prepare for population growth against ageing infrastructure and climate change related risks such as droughts and floods. Innovative water suppliers are embedding AI in customer experience to monitor and advise on issues and resolution times. They are also supporting customers experiencing financial hardship, and improving data privacy.