ACXPA Launches Quality Insights Service

Melbourne, Australia – September 19, 2023 – The Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA) has launched a new Quality Insights Service to provide insights into the customer experience delivered by Australian businesses along with a range of resources and training to help businesses improve their service delivery level.

Simon Blair has been appointed as the new General Manager, Quality Insights, with over 30 years of experience in the Australian Contact Centre industry, having led a range of benchmarking, mystery shopping programs and performance insights workshops for some of Australia’s leading companies.

“It’s an exciting appointment for ACXPA with Simon’s experience and insights helping to build services that can help businesses identify areas for improvement, and then provide solutions that can help them improve the experience for the customers and their business,” said Justin Tippett, CEO of ACXPA.

The new Customer Insights service will include:

• Australian Call Centre Rankings Report – a monthly report providing industry data on the performance of the Australian contact centre industry across over 40 different performance metrics.
• Contact Centre CX Benchmarking – a fixed price Mystery Shopping program that provides businesses with insights into the performance of their own contact centre, and five of their nominated competitors.
• Customer Service Benchmarking – a flexible service enabling companies to send in calls/emails/live chat interactions for assessments against premium customer service standards.
• Training courses that teach premium customer service skills that are aligned with the Australian Contact Centre Quality Framework.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to help drive the improvement of the customer experience in Australia” said Blair.

“Whilst the current talk is all about AI and technology, the fundamental skills of customer service seem to be in freefall, so we’ll be helping organisations to identify specific areas of weakness and then ensuring they have the resources, training and support they need to deliver an improved level of service. Not only is that great for customers, but delivering a better customer experience is great for businesses leading to increased efficiencies, increased profitability and higher levels of employee engagement and customer retention,” he said.

Call Centre Rankings Report Findings

The first report released on the 19th of September 2023 revealed insights from assessing 36 different contact centres across five different sectors (Banking, Councils, TAFEs, Energy Providers and Internet Providers).

Tippett says “The new report shines the torch on the experience consumers are receiving via the contact centre channel and as an industry, it’s clear that businesses need to invest more in ensuring the contact centre is adequately resourced, and that contact centre employees are equipped with the skills they need to deliver efficient and effective customer experiences”.

Key findings from the August 2023 report:

• 44% of calls to banks (for sales-related calls) were not answered either due to delays in excess of 10 minutes or due to technical glitches with the answering service/IVR.
• Banks were rated as the poorest performers of all industry sectors in both accessibility and the quality of the interactions with the contact centre.
• Internet Providers (60.4%) were rated as providing the best customer service, however, still well short of providing a premium level of customer service.
• The average time stuck in an IVR (press 1 for this, 2 for that) was 0.43 minutes, which customers are forced to go through before being able to connect to a live agent. Councils (0:20 minutes) offered the fastest navigation with Banks the longest (1:10 minutes) with up to 5 layers of options.
• The average wait time across the industry was 03:13 minutes with the best sector Internet Providers (0:51 seconds) with banks the longest (4:42 minutes)
• Energy Providers delivered the best quality over the phone (63.9%) with Banks the poorest (44.7%,) just marginally behind TAFEs (45.9%).

To see more insights from the report, visit: https://acxpa.com.au/call-centre-rankings/australian-call-centre-industry/

About ACXPA

ACXPA helps Australian businesses to elevate their customer experiences via voice, digital and in-person channels by empowering their employees with the skills, industry insights and professional support networks they need to succeed.

ACXPA is backed by leading CX experts from brands including SEEK, Red Energy and Yarra Valley Water. Members have access to live, online monthly symposiums and workshops, a Video Library of expert presentations, in-person networking events, world-class training, downloadable templates, members and suppliers directory, support forums and other practical resources.