2023 Australian Contact Centre Industry Best Practice Report
For the past four years, the team at Smaart Recruitment has produced the most comprehensive report on the Australian contact centre industry. The 2023 Australian Contact Centre Industry Best Practice Report delivers insight crucial for anyone working in the industry here.
From a humble 48 pages in 2019, this year's report contains 18 different categories across 208 pages — packed with expert insights, statistics, KPI performance and case studies — with over 300 contact centres contributing.
New sections for 2023 include Knowledge Management, Macroeconomic Impacts, and Training, Learning & Development, with the Offshoring section removed.
This article is our summary of the key findings. The full 208-page report is produced and owned by Smaart Recruitment and is available from them at contactcentrebestpractice.com.au.
18 categories, 208 pages
Three new sections added: knowledge management, macroeconomics, and training & development.
300+ contact centres
Plus over 500 frontline agents surveyed directly for the Role of an Agent section.
Before the AI wave
Surveyed before Generative AI reached the contact centre floor — a clean pre-boom baseline.
📌 Looking for the latest insights?
Newer editions are available: the 2024 report and the 2025 report, which added large-scale frontline agent participation and the ACXPA Call Centre Rankings.
Contributing authors and companies
Pulling together such a comprehensive report is no easy task, and a big shout-out to James Witcombe from Smaart Recruitment, who has again done a brilliant job — supported by local industry experts who contributed writing, commentary, best-practice tips and future predictions.
ACXPA has contributed to every edition of this report since 2020, with our CEO Justin Tippett authoring the Role of the Contact Centre Manager section this year. Their support, and that of their companies, enables the report to be produced at no cost to people working in the industry — so where possible, please show them some support in return.
Key Findings from the 2023 Report
If there is one constant in contact centres, it's change — and throughout 2023 and into 2024, that shows no signs of stopping.
Technology continues to play an increasingly critical role, and the popularity of ChatGPT has led to an explosion in artificial intelligence awareness among both consumers and the business community.
That said, some things remain constant. Challenges with recruitment, retention and employee engagement continue to cause sleepless nights for contact centre managers.
Remote Working
COVID rapidly changed work-from-home dynamics in most industries, and contact centres certainly saw rapid change. The 2023 data suggests things are starting to trend back toward pre-COVID levels.
That said, we don't expect that to continue — this year's data most likely reflects the new normal. 70% of contact centres believe the ratio of work-from-home to onsite will remain the same (13% expect it to increase, 17% expect it to decrease).
- 57% of employees are working from home (down from 76% in 2022).
- Full flexibility (agents choosing where to work at least 90% of the time) reduced from 37% to 17%, suggesting contact centres are becoming more prescriptive.
- The effectiveness of remote agents continues to increase year on year, with 62% of centres claiming performance is as effective or more effective than in the office.
- A disconnected workforce is the biggest concern for managers (48%), followed by mental health (46%) and employee engagement (45%).
- 47% of contact centres report absenteeism is lower for staff working from home (47% see no difference; just 1% say it is higher).
- 70% reported no change to customer satisfaction results (up 4% from 2022) whether agents work onsite or from home.
Absenteeism & Attrition
Managing absenteeism and attrition has always been a focus area for contact centre managers — and in 2023, with the increase in remote work, it's again high on the priority list.
Absenteeism
- Average absenteeism increased sharply, from 9% in 2022 to 13.4% in 2023.
- Best practice (the top 15% of contact centres) had less than 7% absenteeism.
- The leading cause was seasonal illness / COVID — up 34% to 68%. The next highest reason was an increase in the challenge of the work (12%).
- Smaller centres (under 50 FTE) had the best average absenteeism (12.0%), with 300–500 FTE the worst (18.8%).
- 76% reported that absenteeism improved with greater roster flexibility.
Attrition
- 32% is the average attrition rate over the past 12 months — an increase of 6% from 2022.
- Best practice attrition was 15% or less, achieved by 23% of contact centres.
- More agents are leaving the company altogether (65%) rather than moving to internal roles (35%) — up from 61% last year.
- Leading reasons for leaving: pursuing a different career (56%, up 26%), financial reasons (38%, up 22%), personal reasons (33%, up 14%) and dissatisfaction with the work (23%, up 15%).
- Overall retention after 12 months has dropped to 64%, down from 69% in 2022 and 73% in 2021 — confirming it's becoming harder and harder to retain employees.
Employee Engagement
79% of survey respondents are measuring employee engagement in some capacity.
- 34% have a contact centre-specific tool, as opposed to an organisation-wide survey.
- 68% share the results with frontline employees (up 4% from 2022).
- The average employee engagement score was 74/100 — down slightly from 75.6 in 2022.
- 54% claim their engagement scores have improved on the previous year.
- Asked how likely they'd be to recommend their organisation as a place of employment (an NPS-style question), contact centre managers scored 7.9 — down from 8.3 in 2022. Frontline agents scored just 6.8, down from 7.5.
The engagement activities that meant the most to employees, in order, were: increased shift flexibility; opportunity for additional professional development; more rewards for performance; face-to-face team activities in the office; and face-to-face team social activities.
Modern Ways of Working
You may have heard terms like the "agile contact centre", which brings a new methodology to how contact centres are managed. This section explored new ways of thinking, and how aligned managers and employees are with business objectives.
- Only 45% of leaders strongly agreed that they understand the organisation's vision and purpose.
- 53% of leaders — 1 in 2 — face challenges with silos and poor collaboration with other teams. (77% agree to some degree that they collaborate effectively; only 15% strongly agree.)
- Only 31% of managers felt they were spending enough time working on strategy (the next one to three years).
- 31% of interactions into a contact centre were driven by failures of the business — known as failure demand.
- Only 4 in 10 leaders say they are managing change effectively.
Macro Economic Factors
You don't have to go far to have a conversation about the state of the economy, rising inflation or employment rates — so a new section was included this year to capture macroeconomic factors.
Has the economy had an impact on the number of stressful customer interactions? Yes, significantly (24%); yes, slightly (46%); no (28%). And 68% of respondents expect this to increase throughout 2023.
Have climate events (storms, floods etc.) impacted your customer base over the past 12 months? Yes, significantly (26%); yes, slightly (44%); no (30%).
The biggest macroeconomic issues impacting the contact centre, in order, were: COVID; cost of living; cyber security and data breaches; change in government and government policy; and the reduction in the number of international students.
Contact Centre Performance
There is no shortage of metrics in a contact centre, but knowing the right ones to use can be tricky — and they differ by size, function and industry sector.
- Average Speed of Answer decreased from 132 seconds (2022) to 101 seconds (2023).
- Average Abandonment Rate increased from 7% (2022) to 9% (2023).
- 80/30 is the most common Grade of Service target (16%), followed by 80/20 (14%) — though there's a wide spread. Across all targets, 55% reported achieving within or better than 95% of their target.
- Average Handling Time was 507 seconds.
- The Average Customer Satisfaction Score is 74 out of 100, slightly down from 75 in 2022. NPS remains the most popular customer feedback measure (66%), followed by CSAT (54%).
The metrics given the greatest importance were customer feedback (69%), abandonment rate (63%), average speed of answer (61%), average handling time (43%), First Call Resolution (42%) and grade of service (41%).
Digital Transformation
Digital transformation is a term you now hear often, and in the contact centre industry there are significant opportunities to improve efficiency, customer experience and Employee Experience through technology.
This year's report gave specific insight into the different types of contact centre technology available and their use:
| Technology type | Importance rating | Practising or optimising | None / not planning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single view agent desktop | 76% | 38% | 27% |
| Analytics and insights | 74% | 39% | 19% |
| Self-service | 73% | 29% | 28% |
| Knowledge management | 72% | 44% | 11% |
| Authentication | 71% | 33% | 41% |
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence continues to rise in popularity, and following ChatGPT's release in late 2022 there has been an explosion in AI-related tools and awareness.
An important caveat
This report was released in June 2023, with surveys completed before generative AI had taken hold in most contact centres — so expect a dramatic shift in these numbers in the 2024 survey. That makes this close to the last pre-AI-boom baseline for the industry.
When we mention AI in a contact centre setting, it predominantly relates to Speech Analytics (61%, up 20% from 2022), chatbots and virtual assistants (56%), robotic process automation (33%), IVR natural language (26%) and predictive call routing (26%).
Overall use of AI within contact centres is currently low, but expected to increase:
- Using AI in an experimental way (12.5%)
- Using AI to a low or moderate level (26%)
- Using AI to a high level (4.5%)
- Not using AI but looking to implement in 2022/23 (26%)
- No plans to implement (25%)
- Don't know / unsure (5%)
- Of those using AI, 32% claim it has helped improve customer satisfaction scores (up from 26% in 2022).
- 53% reported AI enabled them to reallocate resources to where they were better suited (no change from 2022).
- The contact centre manager is the role predominantly responsible for managing AI tools (48%), followed by IT (17%).
- 73% plan to invest more in AI solutions in future.
- 85% believe AI will help human agents rather than replace them, and 82% believe AI can provide a better overall contact centre experience.
Mental Health & Wellbeing
In a post-COVID era with the prevalence of a remote workforce, mental health and wellbeing is a major focus for society as a whole — and that extends to the contact centre, where changes to working arrangements, reduced staffing and changes to support structures have all contributed to significant change.
- 79% of respondents were confident in their levels of awareness towards the mental health and wellbeing of their people.
- 53% believe it has become more difficult to maintain mental health and wellbeing with a remote workforce.
- 65% believe their contact centre has the right processes and systems in place to effectively protect and support employees.
- Less than half (48%) have confidence their employees can proactively and effectively support their own mental health and wellbeing.
Customer Experience
The importance and awareness of customer experience continues to increase, and the contact centre's role as a contributor to a business's CX outcomes continues to rise with it.
- The most common CX metrics are NPS (66%) and CSAT (54%), followed by retention rate (26%), Customer Effort Score (13%) and customer churn (11%). Internally developed metrics also rated highly (33%), signifying some maturity around the value drivers that matter to certain businesses.
- The most popular post-interaction survey is a post-call survey (45%), followed by post-email (33%).
- When using a post-interaction survey, NPS is the most popular (54%), followed by CSAT (40%).
- Email continues to be the most popular method to capture customer satisfaction (59%), followed by IVR-based post-call surveys (31%).
- Speech analytics usage continues to climb, but there's still significant opportunity: 31% use it for customer insights, 26% for quality management, and 50% are not using it at all.
- Only 22% have integrated tools enabling them to communicate with customers across multiple channels on one platform.
- 46% reported that CX KPIs are viewed as important by the senior executive team or board.
Knowledge Management
A new section for 2023, exploring the use of purpose-built Knowledge Management Systems. A purpose-built KMS is designed and maintained specifically for a contact centre environment, delivering answers — not pages of text and documents — so agents can respond quickly and easily.
- 59% of people working in a knowledge management role started as an agent in the contact centre; the next most common background is another knowledge management role (22%). Only 3% came from a team leader role.
- Of those using a knowledge platform, 59% use a purpose-built KMS while 31% use other platforms (SharePoint, Word, Excel, folders on desktops).
- Among those with a purpose-built KMS, 95% of knowledge managers are satisfied or very satisfied that it delivers answers to agents quickly, and 83% of agents find it useful or extremely useful. For other knowledge solutions (SharePoint, Word, folders), agent satisfaction drops to 67%.
- While a purpose-built KMS is mostly used in the contact centre (68%), usage across the entire organisation is 32% — done well, a KMS becomes a single point of truth for all employees.
- 92% of managers report their KMS is "extremely or very important" to the running of their contact centre.
Training, Learning & Development
Another new section for 2023, looking at trends, insights and benchmarks for training, learning and development.
Where new agents are trained
| Training location | Contact centres |
|---|---|
| 100% onsite | 44% |
| 75% onsite / 25% remote | 26% |
| 50% onsite / 50% remote | 8% |
| 25% onsite / 75% remote | 15% |
| 100% remote | 5% |
- 82% of contact centre managers believe onsite training is the most effective.
- The most common induction length is 2 weeks (31%), followed by 3 weeks (26%) and 4 weeks (26%).
- 11% of employees leave the organisation during the induction training period.
- The biggest challenges during induction are learning how to use and navigate systems (85%), learning the role and industry (44%), learning the product (36%) and training fatigue (28%).
- Only 10% of contact centres are using AI coaching as part of their training.
- 70% of employees need to pass a test for induction training to be considered finished.
- 77% never or rarely use external trainers or experts to conduct training.
- On average, 24 hours per month is dedicated to frontline agent training, learning and development.
The areas where existing staff need more training were communication — listening, tone, empathy (38%) — conflict resolution (23%), systems (18%) and products (10%).
A telling result
Asked how well agents are equipped to handle irritated customers, not one respondent said "very well equipped" (0%). Just 51% said "well equipped", 44% were passive, and 5% said not very well equipped.
Recruitment
Just like 2022, recruitment continues to be a big challenge for contact centre leaders — though there has been a shift in some of the drivers.
- The top challenge is that salaries are not competitive enough (62%, up 26% from 2022), suggesting the industry faces significant competition for resources from other sectors. This was followed by low volume of applicants (48%).
- 46% estimate they will be recruiting more agents in 2023; 39% about the same; 14% fewer.
- Over the previous 12 months, 26% of agents were hired as remote workers.
- 46% have hired people from other cities or states who would normally have been hired locally.
- Only 15% are hiring remotely for management, leadership and specialist roles.
- 28% claim the quality of frontline agents hired has improved (up from 15% in 2022).
- 18% are using recruitment agencies to fill vacancies.
Workforce Planning & Optimisation
Workforce planning and optimisation is becoming an increasingly important function, designed to maximise the efficiency of your workforce.
- Employees working 100% from home: agents (21%), team leaders (13%), WFM staff (17%).
- For agents on a hybrid model, the most common requirement is 2 days in the office each week (37%), followed by 3 days (28%) and 1 day (17%).
- 86% of WFM staff started as a contact centre agent, and 76% are trained internally.
- 65% use a cloud-based system; 35% are on-premise.
- 60% of those forecasting use a Workforce Management system, while 26% are still using Excel.
- 76% measure forecast accuracy.
- Schedules are created weekly (37%), monthly (31%) or fortnightly (20%).
- Four weeks is the most common roster notice period (37%), followed by six weeks (18%) and two or three weeks (16%).
- 66% have an adherence to schedule KPI.
- The biggest challenges for the WFM team are the inability to recruit staff (42%), attrition (42%), providing staff the flexibility they want (38%) and getting agents to adhere to the schedule (32%).
The Role of an Agent
The 2023 report surveyed over 500 frontline agents from a range of different-sized contact centres, to gain their insight into the challenges they face and the opportunities to improve their work. 62% of respondents had worked in the contact centre for at least a year, with 17% working there five years or more.
- 55% of agents claim to have very high or full flexibility over their ability to work from home; 21% have little to none.
- 74% of agents would work from home if given the choice, with less travel time the biggest benefit cited.
- 48% said lack of social interaction is the biggest challenge of working from home.
- 30% claim they are "a lot more productive" when working from home.
- The engagement activities that mean most to agents: increased shift flexibility (22%), opportunity for professional development (21%) and more rewards for performance (19%).
- 62% of agents said they would be less likely to leave if it was easier to make changes to their roster.
- 65% of agents find their current role either "very" or "quite" fulfilling.
On career aspirations: 34% want a path towards a specialised role within the contact centre (WFM, training, knowledge management, reporting), 23% want a path with the same company but outside the contact centre, 12% want to be a team leader, 21% aren't looking beyond their current role, and 7% don't expect to be with the company beyond it.
The Role of a Team Leader
Often described as the most important role in the contact centre, the team leader has one of the most demanding jobs — with huge influence over culture and performance.
- Coaching and development of agents is considered their number one priority — yet 39% of team leaders say they do not have enough time to do it.
- 48% feel too much time is spent in meetings, followed by dealing with personnel issues (26%) and escalations/complaints (26%).
- The functions they'd most like removed: dealing with remote working issues (43%), coordination of rosters (37%), escalations and complaints (29%), attending meetings (18%) and recruitment (18%).
- Their two greatest self-identified weaknesses: reporting and analysis (29%), dealing with remote worker issues (28%), being a subject matter expert (26%) and Quality Assurance (15%).
- One-on-ones with agents are most commonly monthly (36%), fortnightly (35%) or weekly (18%).
- Only 37% of contact centres have a structured, ongoing learning program for their team leaders.
- On career ambitions: 40% are keen to advance within the contact centre, 25% within the same company but outside it, and 22% are happy to focus on being a team leader.
- Most team leaders find their job fulfilling (27%) or quite fulfilling (53%) — both down on 2022.
The Role of a Contact Centre Manager
The contact centre manager role is becoming increasingly complex and critical — not only to the success of the contact centre, but as a significant contributor to the overall success of an organisation.
That said, there are significant challenges in competing for resources and ensuring the contact centre is considered when key business decisions are made.
- 74% felt their role was valued by their organisation — a decrease of 2% on the previous year.
- 47% do not feel they are provided with enough resources to meet their KPIs.
- 46% believe the impact on the contact centre is not considered when the business makes decisions about products, services or policies.
- The scope of the contact centre keeps increasing, now covering email (91%), live chat (55%), SMS (45%), written communication (44%), social media (38%) and chatbots (26%).
- Over 77% are actively involved in technology decision-making. On business cases for technology, 35% are led by IT, 30% by the contact centre manager and 17% by their manager.
- Most work 40–45 hours per week (43%), with 46–50 hours next most common (26%). 24% work more than 51 hours a week.
- 88% find their work very fulfilling (45%) or quite fulfilling (43%).
Salaries & Bonuses
With the challenges in recruitment well documented, it's not surprising there has been an increase in both salaries and bonuses for contact centre employees.
💰 Looking for the latest salary data?
The figures below are from the 2023 report and reflect that point in time. For the most current benchmarks across every contact centre role, see our Australian Call Centre Salaries page — always kept up to date.
Frontline Customer Service salaries by state (2023)
| State | Average base |
|---|---|
| Western Australia | $64,500 |
| New South Wales | $62,800 |
| Victoria | $57,600 |
| Queensland | $55,600 |
| South Australia | $55,000 |
National averages (2023)
Top-paying frontline roles (2023)
| Role | Average base |
|---|---|
| Helpdesk Level 2 / Senior | $67,300 |
| Senior Customer Service | $62,950 |
| Collections | $62,500 |
| Outbound Sales | $62,200 |
Team Leaders and specialists (2023)
- Customer Service Team Leader roles are still in hot demand, with the national average base now $83,200 + super and an average bonus of $8,500.
- Outbound Sales Team Leaders are the highest paid, on $84,700 + super with an average $13,000 bonus.
- Workforce Planning Managers continue to increase in demand and are in short supply — a national average of $132,000 + super, up 3.9%.
- Knowledge Managers are increasing in importance, on a national average base of $116,200 + super.
- Contact centre trainers earn on average $61,600 + super, and training managers $82,500 + super (with 50% reporting an average bonus of $6,000).
Senior contact centre salaries (2023)
Senior roles are also in high demand, though a wide range of role definitions can significantly influence salaries.
| Role | Base | Avg bonus |
|---|---|---|
| Operations Manager | $127,000 | $16,500 |
| Senior Operations Manager | $182,100 | $41,100 |
| Contact Centre Manager | $131,000 | $7,200 |
| Senior Contact Centre Manager | $156,000 | $12,200 |
| Head of Contact Centres | $190,200 | $27,800 |
| Head of Customer Service / CX | $204,600 | $19,400 |
All salaries + super. Source: Smaart Recruitment 2023 Australian Contact Centre Industry Best Practice Report. For current benchmarks, see Australian Call Centre Salaries.
See What Customers Actually Experience
The data in this report is self-reported by contact centres. Since this edition was published, ACXPA has launched the Call Centre Rankings — the only national mystery shopping program that measures what customers actually experience when they call.
Real calls are made every month and scored against the Australian Contact Centre CX Standards across more than 80 metrics, covering accessibility, agent mastery and overall CX. It's the independent counterweight to self-reported data — and it's live right now.
Conclusion
There is no question there is a significant amount of diversity in the Australian contact centre industry.
One of our aims at ACXPA is to keep providing you with valuable information to help you benchmark, learn and share — so we can all succeed as an industry.
You can also view the latest Australian Call Centre Rankings — revealing wait times, quality performance, navigation times, talk times and more across a range of industry sectors, updated monthly.
Get the Full Report
This article is our summary of the key findings. The full 208-page 2023 report is produced and owned by Smaart Recruitment and is available from them at contactcentrebestpractice.com.au.
The data tells you what. These tell you what to do about it.
Benchmarks are only useful if they change something. These are the two places ACXPA members go to act on them.
🎯 The Call Centre Hub
Standards, benchmarking, workforce management, coaching, complaints and training — the complete operational toolkit for running a modern call centre, in one place.
🗣️ Call Centre Roundtables
Practitioner-led sessions where contact centre leaders work through the issues in this report — attrition, absenteeism, AI, rostering — with people facing exactly the same problems.
Find the partners behind high-performing contact centres
Looking for the technology, recruitment or advisory partners to lift your own performance? Browse Australian suppliers in the ACXPA Supplier Directory.
Browse the full ACXPA Supplier Directory →
