Forrester’s CX APAC 2023 was an incredibly successful event, sharing vast industry knowledge and experience across two days of keynotes, track sessions and case studies. We want to thank everyone involved in making the event such a success, in particular our amazing lineup of industry speakers without whom this event would not have been possible. In that spirit, here are five highlights from our distinguished guest speakers:
“It’s not that we don’t want certain customers. They don’t want us. And that’s OK.”
— Rosalind Coffey, Head of People & Culture and Client Service & Support at Macquarie Bank
Rosalind Coffey, Head of People & Culture and Client Service & Support at Macquarie Bank, highlighted how Macquarie differentiates from its bigger competitors by delivering the best possible experiences to customers who prefer digital-first banking. Coffey explained that in order to excel as a digital bank, Macquarie focuses on people rather than tech. Macquarie applies human-centered design to determine where technology can improve CX the most. The bank also maps how employee journeys support specific customer journeys to reinforce their crucial role in delivering great customer experiences and their impact on business success.
“It was really hard to start using the word ‘customer’ in government.”
— William Murphy, Deputy Secretary, Customer, Delivery and Transformation, NSW Department of Customer Service
William Murphy, Deputy Secretary at the NSW Department of Customer Service, described the challenges in delivering great CX when you can’t pick and choose your own customers — the government has to treat every single person in the state as their customer. Murphy explained how the NSW DCS built broad consensus and buy-in for its customer-focused transformation by focusing on key customer life journeys (e.g., starting a family) spanning across different government departments as well as organizations in the private sector. The NSW government also created a unified customer-centric digital experience by consolidating more than 750 websites on 35 different content management systems into a new one-stop-shop website.
“The best value comes from closing the loop of complaints.”
— Sandra De Zoysa, Group Chief Customer Officer at Dialog Axiata
Dialog Axiata, one of the largest telcos in Sri Lanka, won Forrester’s 2023 APAC Customer-Obsessed Enterprise Award. Sandra De Zoysa, Group Chief Customer Officer at Dialog, spoke about the digital transformation she led. According to De Zoysa, people skills were core to the success of the transformation. To operationalize the corporate value ‘Service from the Heart’, Dialog Axiata created ‘Kill the Rule’, a program that enables staff to escalate problems with processes and policy that prevents them from providing a great customer experience. Dialog also created a ‘Fund Bucket’, a dedicated budget that enables staff to apply waivers for customer complaints on bill and usage discrepancies within 24 hours.
“Are we safe or are we bold?”
— Nick Carter, General Manager of Digital at Bendigo & Adelaide Bank
Discussing another digital transformation was Nick Carter, GM of Digital at Bendigo & Adelaide Bank. Nick outlined the bank’s shift from a community bank to a digital-first bank. To bolster its digital capabilities, Bendigo acquired Ferocia, a Melbourne-based fintech that developed a digital-only bank Up. While the Ferocia team have joined Bendigo, they continue to operate as a standalone division with a unique innovation, engineering, and design culture. During this transformation, Bendigo has been constantly trying to maintain that balance of embracing disruption, while still implementing practical and tangible applications of their new ideas to deliver value to customers and the business.
“Customer centricity is an ongoing journey, and there really is no end point.”
— Paul Bashford, Head of Group Listening Programs at Woolworths Group
Paul Bashford, Head of Group Listening Programs at Woolworths Group, discussed the long and winding journey to building a culture of customer listening at Woolworths. One issue Bashford had to tackle was how teams were score-obsessed, not customer-obsessed. To encourage staff to focus on customers, Woolworths has been trialling freezing score visualisation in their customer feedback management portal — team members can only see the score on the first day of each month, and then the score is locked — meaning they have to read, share and act on the comments.
So that’s it for our CX APAC 2023 recap. Ultimately, the sessions explored the ideas of knowing who your customers are, putting these customers at the center of your organization, and taking a stance of being bold, aiming and acting in order to deliver the best customer experience possible. Stay tuned for our best practices report which will dive into each of these sessions in greater detail.
