2024 Australian Contact Centre Industry Best Practice Report

Digital Transformation is now a core focus for many businesses, and the contact centre channel can be a goldmine to offer improved efficiencies, customer experience, employee experience and more.

In this year’s 2024 Australian Contact Centre Industry Best Practice Report, new questions were included that provided specific insights into the different types of contact centre technology either currently being used or forecasted to be implemented within the next 12 months.

• 51% of contact centres use Skills-Based Routing to direct calls to the most appropriately skilled agent.
• Automated quality assurance is being used by 8% of contact centres, and this figure is expected to increase in the coming years.
• 34% of contact centres provide agents with a single desktop providing a full view of the customer profile to facilitate case management and workflow.
• 37% of contact centres have agent learning supported by knowledge management, automated quality management and real-time agent coaching to enhance development.
• 28% of contact centres have one simple and easy process for the customer to identify themselves and authenticate across all channels.
• 18% of contact centres have integrated channels that offer customer experience based on the customer’s profile, propensity, needs and complexity of issue.

In the 2023 Australian Contact Centre Industry Best Practice Report released in May 2023, we forecasted an explosion in AI-related tools and awareness, and 2024 did not disappoint!

AI has permeated almost every element of the modern contact centre.

47% of Australian contact centres now use AI in some capacity, and despite the results below, 35% of contact centres expect to implement AI in the contact centre within the next 18 months.

But it hasn’t been all smooth sailing suggesting that many of the vendor claims and hype around the benefits are not actually translating to reality.

• Only 23% of contact centres claimed that AI has helped improve customer satisfaction scores, a decrease of 9% from the 2023 survey,
• When it comes to assisting the running of the contact centres, ‘Met Expectations’ also decreased by 25%, dropping from 62% in 2023 to 37% in 2024.
• 30% of contact centres said’ yes’ to using AI to assist in reallocating resources to where they are better suited, dropping from 53% in 2023 to 30% in 2024.
• When asked if AI has helped increase conversions, again, it decreased from 24% in 2023 to 14% in 2024.
• A decline has also been seen in the use of AI to help extend reach and service availability, from 24% saying ‘yes’ in 2023 to 14% in 2024.

With regards to where Artificial Intelligence is being used in a contact centre, every area experienced a decrease in 2024 as compared to 2023 usage.

• Chatbots and Virtual Assistants (56%) – no change from 2023
• Speech Analytics (51%) – down 10% from 2023
• Natural Language IVR (12%) – down 14% from 2023
• Robotic Process Automation (22%) – down 11% from 2023
• Predictive Call Routing (18%) – down 8% from 2023

Most recent industry research on customer preferences suggests that customers like to self-serve where possible.

With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), contact centres have a significant opportunity to optimise their options further to reduce manual effort and smoothen the customer experience.

Whilst there is no dispute that self-service can be a great option, it’s not necessarily suited for all contact types and situations, and there are barriers such as complexity and cost,  so the adoption of self-service solutions can be disparate across the industry.

Notwithstanding, there were some fascinating insights into this new category including:

• 42% of contact centres currently offer self-service support, and it’s working, while 25% are using it, but it’s not producing the expected results.
• Where self-serve is offered, 39% of contact centres can capture the number of customers using it, 41% cannot, and 20% are unsure.
• It’s a key focus area with 70% of contact centres selecting ‘Very Important’ to optimise/improve their self-service support options in 2024.
• Chatbots (76%), Customer-facing knowledge base (53%) and Video Tutorials (31%) are the most common self-service options being explored.
• The leading benefits for those who have implemented self-service are Streamline the customer journey (49%), Operational Efficiency (44%), Reduced human support headcount (63%), Provide greater access to information (29%).
• For those looking at implementing self-service, their primary drivers are ‘Streamline the customer journey (74%), Provide greater access to information (69%), Operational Efficiency (63%), Reduced human support headcount (49%), Cost Optimisation (43%).

Continuous Improvement is not a new business concept.

However, it is certainly gaining an increasing focus in the contact centre as it looks to drive efficiencies across the business and improve the overall customer experience.

You may also have heard of terms like Agile Contact Centre, which is bringing a new methodology to how contact centres are managed.

This year, the 2024 Australian Contact Centre Industry Best Practice Report spotlighted Failure Demand and continuous improvement opportunities.

• The current level of failure demand has decreased for the third consecutive year to 27% (down from 31% in 2023).
• The biggest sources of data to understand customers’ pain points and goals were Complaints (88%), Customer Satisfaction Surveys (85%), and Customer Interaction Data such as calls, transactions, etc. (72%).
• How effectively does your organisation involve contact centre employees and teams in the problem-solving and solution-design process?
  • Not effectively (8%)
  • Slightly effective (24%)
  • Moderately effective (44%)
  • Very effective (20%)
  • Extremely effective (4%)
• Where a Continuous Improvement & Innovation program is in place, the key focuses are:
  • Making existing processes more efficient/fixing issues (87%)
  • Automating Processes (67%)
  • Product Enhancements (making existing products better) (43%)
• Learn more about Failure Demand >

The importance, awareness, and understanding of customer experience continue to increase, and the contact centre’s role as a contributor to a business’s CX outcomes also continues to rise.

Type of Customer Experience Metrics/KPIs being used

• The most common metric used to measure Customer Experience is the Net Promoter Score (NPS) (57%); however, it is in its fourth year of decline.
• When it comes to post-interaction surveys;
  • Post-call survey is the most popular (45%) and no change from last year.
  • Post-email survey (35%), up 2% from last year.
• An email survey continues to be the most popular method to capture customer satisfaction (63%), up 4% from 2023.
• The popularity of a post-call survey (IVR-based) decreased from 31% in 2023 to 26% in 2024 and SMS had the biggest decrease down 9% from 19% in 2023 to 10% in 2024.
• When contact centres were asked what the main area of focus was in 2024 to improve the CX, the answer was clear: 53% cited ‘Process’ as the key focus area, followed by people (27%) and personalisation (8%).
• The Voice Channel (i.e. phone calls) delivers significantly the highest levels of satisfaction (78%) with Live Chat the next highest at just 8%.
• There was very little change in the use of Speech Analytics to assist in CX:
  • 29% use it to gain customer insights (down 2%)
  • 29% use it for quality management (up 3%)
  • 49% are not using Speech Analytics at all (down 1%)
• When contact centre managers were asked about their understanding of the biggest changes to customer expectations over the past 12 months, the top three were:
  • Higher expectations of agents (32%)
  • Better self-service capability (28%)
  • Privacy and security of customer data (16%)

For the first time, the 2024 Australian Contact Centre Benchmarking Report included the ACXPA Mystery Shopping program results.

Unlike most of the report data, which is self-reported by over 300 contact centres across Australia, the Mystery Shopping results are determined by making actual calls to companies, reflecting the outcomes of those experiences.

The hard copy of the report included the results from August 2023 to January 2024, however, you can view the latest call centre benchmarking data here >

After the year of the great resignation in 2023, contact centre recruitment appears to be shifting back towards an employer’s market.

In this year’s 2024 Australian Contact Centre industry Best Practice report, specialist contact centre recruitment agencies were used more to help contact centres fill frontline roles (+6%), and more internal recruitment teams were using dedicated internal contact centre recruitment roles (+7%), suggesting that finding high-quality contact centre agents is becoming an increasingly specialised function.

• The top concerns from recruitment/talent teams are consistent with last year: salaries are not competitive enough. However, this number has declined from 62% in 2023 to 56% in 2024.
• Another notable decline in concerns from last year was the low volume of applicants; last year, it was the second highest concern at 48%, and this year, that has decreased to 28%.
• AI may be showing its first notable impact on contact centre jobs, with 25% of respondents estimating they will be recruiting more agents in 2024. This is a notable decline from 46% (-21%) in 2023. 19% estimated they will be recruiting fewer agents than last year. 47% estimated about the same level of recruitment.
• Over the previous 12 months, 30% of agents were hired as remote workers, up from 26% in 2023.
• The hiring of remote workers appears to be easing, with 22% of contact centres forecasting it will ‘decrease a little’, up from 7% in 2023 whilst increase significantly reduced from 14% in 2023 to 0% in 2024.
• When it comes to recruiting remote workers for management, leadership, and specialist contact centre roles, there has been a notable shift from 15% to 31%, suggesting companies are more open to having their leaders work remotely than in previous years.
• 34% of respondents claim the quality of frontline agents hired has improved, the third consecutive increase (up from 15% in 2022 and 28% in 2023).
• 24% of contact centres are using recruitment agencies to fill vacancies, the third consecutive year this has increased (last year was 18%).

Workforce Planning & Optimisation is a highly specialised function that can deliver improved efficiencies for the contact centre workforce.

Key findings from the 2024 Australian Contact Centre Industry Best Practice Report include:

• The number of dedicated roles in Workforce Management increased from 6.0 in 2023 to 7.8 in 2023.
• Consistent with contact centre management roles, 75% of workforce planners started their careers on the phones.
• Retention in WFM roles is high – 36% have worked in WFM roles for 5 – 10 years, and 37% for more than 10 years.
• Internal training is still the most common (66%), but only 13% use third-party training on WFM processes and best practices, which is a concern and offers a significant opportunity for contact centres to find greater efficiencies.
• 71% of contact centres are now using a cloud-based WFM system, up 6%, and this increase is expected to continue.
• The two biggest challenges for Workforce Planners are ‘Business overriding scheduling decisions’ (38%) and providing staff with the scheduling flexibility they want (36%). Notably, the inability to recruit staff, which was last year’s greatest challenge, decreased from 42% to 10% in 2024.

Forecasting

• 60% of contact centres that do forecasting are using a workforce management system, 36% are still using Excel.
• More contact centres are measuring forecast accuracy (83%, up from 76% in 2023,) with daily measurement being the most common frequency (36%).
• There has been an increase in forecasting for Email (+3%) and Back Office Tasks (+8%).

Often described as the most important role in the contact centre, the Contact Centre Team Leader certainly has one of the most demanding roles, and they can have a huge influence on your contact centre’s culture and performance.

• Leadership, Coaching and Development and ‘Checking in’ with team members were considered the top three priorities for Team Leaders in 2024.
• 56% of Team Leaders feel too much time is being spent in meetings (up 8% from 2023), dealing with personnel issues (28%) and dealing with escalations/complaints (21%).
• When asked what key functions they would like to remove from their role, the need to be the subject matter expert had the greatest increase from 2023 (up 10% to 16%) with dealing with remote working issues (43%) and coordination (rosters etc 33% the key functions team leaders would like removed.
• When contact centre team leaders were asked to identify their two greatest weaknesses, Reporting and Analysis (32%) and Dealing with Remote Worker Issues (26%) were the lead two.
• Only 30% of contact centres have a structured and ongoing learning program for their Team Leaders which is concerning given the large influence a team leader has on the culture and performance of the contact centre.
• Perhaps as a growing frustration with the lack of investment in their development, the number of Team Leaders looking to stay in their current contact centre has decreased from 62% in 2023 to 50% in 2024.
• There has also been a notable increase in the number of Team Leaders seeking to advance their career with the same organisation but outside of the contact centre, up from 25% in 2023 to 31% in 2024.

The cost-of-living crisis in 2024 has been well documented in Australia, with many people struggling under the pressures of inflation and increases in interest rates, energy prices, food prices, etc.

This is placing an increased focus on salaries as employees look to gain some relief through higher salaries, and in good news for employees, it appears that salaries have increased noticeably for many roles.

2024 Australian Contact Centre Salaries – Frontline Customer Service

• Customer Service Team Leader roles have experienced a significant increase, rising from $83,200 + super and an average bonus of $8,500 in 2023 to $89.500 + super and an average bonus of $8,900 (7.3% increase from 2023).
• Outbound Sales Team Leaders are still the highest-paid team leader role, with a national average base salary of $85,000 + super and an average $15,000 bonus.
• Workforce Planning roles continue to pay well, with a Workforce Planning Manager’s national average salary of $133,000 + Super.
• Knowledge Managers have also seen a healthy increase, rising from a national average base salary of $116,200 + super to $130,000 + super in 2024 (+11.8%).
• Whilst there have been some modest increases in frontline and middle management roles, senior contact centre roles have either remained static or decreased, perhaps as a realignment after the significant growth witnessed throughout the COVID period, as senior managers were rewarded for managing the complexity of remote workforces, significant changes, etc.

2024 Australian Contact Centre Management Salaries