Executive Summary – National Call Centre Rankings Q4 2025

Australia’s contact centre performance declined in Q4 2025, with the national Overall CX average falling to 52.7% — the lowest result on record since ACXPA commenced national benchmarking. This quarter represents a clear inflection point, reversing the modest gains seen earlier in 2025 and signalling growing pressure across the industry.

At a sector level, performance softened almost universally. All sectors recorded quarter-on-quarter declines in Overall CX, with the sole exception of Education Providers, which improved marginally by +0.4%. Leadership and underperformance at the extremes remained entrenched: ISPs led Overall CX for the fourth consecutive quarter, while Banks ranked last for the fourth consecutive quarter and for nine of the past ten quarters.

Beneath these headline movements sits a more structural challenge. National results continue to show that while fast access and strong conversations are both demonstrably achievable, they are rarely delivered together at scale. Accessibility remains volatile as contact centres struggle to consistently match resources with demand, while Agent Mastery — the measure of frontline soft skills across Engage, Discover, Educate, Close, and Impact — continues to lag despite widespread advances in technology, tooling, and support systems.

The data reinforces a critical industry insight: technology alone is not closing the CX gap. Overall CX outcomes are now being shaped less by structural limitations and more by execution discipline — particularly the ability to deliver confident, human, effective conversations consistently, even as operating environments become more complex.

Leading Contact Centres – Q4 2025

Each quarter, ACXPA recognises the contact centres that delivered standout performance against the
Australian Contact Centre CX Standards. These results highlight where excellence is being achieved nationally — whether through strong balance across all measures or exceptional execution in a specific dimension of contact centre performance.

Overall CX (National Leader)
iiNet — 75.4%
iiNet recorded its first national Overall CX win, delivering the strongest combined performance across both Accessibility and Agent Mastery. Their result reinforces the impact of balanced execution — making it easy for customers to connect and delivering confident, effective conversations once they do.

Accessibility (National Leader)
Engie — 94.8%
Engie led the nation for Accessibility for the first time, continuing a pattern of consistently strong access outcomes. Their result demonstrates that near-instant connection is achievable at scale when call handling fundamentals are executed well.

Agent Mastery (National Leader)
Holmesglen Institute — 81.9%
Holmesglen Institute again topped Agent Mastery nationally, delivering the strongest aggregate performance across the five competencies of Engage, Discover, Educate, Close, and Impact. Their result sets a clear benchmark for frontline capability and conversation quality.

Fastest Average Wait Time
Engie & Alinta — 0:03
These energy retailers set the national benchmark for speed of answer, connecting callers to a live agent in just three seconds on average — the most visible expression of Accessibility performance.

Agent Mastery Competency Leaders
Agent Mastery assesses universal conversation skills that apply to all contact centres, regardless of industry, product, or enquiry type. These competencies deliberately exclude product knowledge, internal processes, or policy compliance, focusing instead on how effectively agents communicate, guide, and support callers through a live interaction.

Q4 results show that leadership in these skills is distributed, with different organisations excelling at different stages of the enquiry journey:

Engage – establishing trust, ownership, and rapport early in the call: Holmesglen Institute (72.2%)
Discover – accurately uncovering customer needs and context: Youi (77.8%)
Educate – clearly explaining options and implications in plain language: Youi & Holmesglen Institute (86.1%)
Close – confirming next steps and driving resolution with confidence: Allianz & iiNet (88.9%)
Impact – leaving the caller with clarity, confidence, and assurance: Brisbane City (91.7%)

Key Wins – Industry Progress

Despite a decline in national Overall CX this quarter, the data continues to highlight areas of genuine progress. These wins are important not because they represent industry-wide improvement, but because they show what is demonstrably achievable when contact centres execute well against the fundamentals.

Accessibility excellence is being achieved at the top end
National Accessibility averaged 64.8% in Q4 2025. While this reflects volatility at the industry level, leading performers such as Engie (94.8%), Dodo Internet (94.5%), and Uniting NSW.ACT (93.9%) continue to demonstrate that excellent ease of connection is achievable across very different sectors when call handling fundamentals are executed consistently.

Fast connection remains achievable at scale
Several sectors continue to deliver very short wait times nationally. Energy Retailers and Education Providers recorded the fastest average connection times, while Car Insurers achieved the strongest sector-wide wait time average at 0:44, reinforcing that speed of answer remains a controllable outcome.

Top-end Agent Mastery capability persists
Although the national Agent Mastery average declined to 51.2%, leading contact centres such as Holmesglen Institute, Youi, and iiNet continue to deliver high-quality, effective enquiry conversations. Their results confirm that strong human conversation capability remains measurable, repeatable, and achievable — even in complex operating environments.

Consistent execution continues to deliver sustained results
Sector momentum remains visible where execution discipline is maintained. ISPs led Overall CX for the fourth consecutive quarter, while Car Insurers continued to show multi-quarter strength across wait times and Close behaviours — reinforcing that sustained CX performance is built through consistency, not short-term intervention.

Overall CX Challenges – National Issues

While Q4 2025 highlights what is possible at the top end of performance, it also surfaces several national challenges that continue to hold overall contact centre CX back. These issues are no longer isolated to individual sectors or organisations, but are increasingly evident across the industry.

The weakest national Overall CX result on record
The national Overall CX average fell to 52.7%, marking the lowest industry-wide result since ACXPA benchmarking commenced. This confirms that improvements seen earlier in 2025 were not sustained and that pressure on contact centre performance intensified in Q4.

Performance polarisation continues to widen
Overall CX scores ranged from 75.4% at the top to 14.1% at the bottom this quarter. While leading centres are delivering fast, confident, and effective experiences, a growing cohort continues to struggle with consistent execution across core CX fundamentals.

Banking underperformance remains entrenched
Banks again ranked last nationally for both Overall CX and Accessibility, extending a pattern of underperformance to four consecutive quarters and nine of the past ten quarters. The persistence of these results suggests systemic execution challenges rather than short-term fluctuation.

Agent Mastery decline is now a systemic risk
National Agent Mastery matched its equal lowest quarter on record, with four of the five competencies trending downward over the past three quarters. This reinforces a central finding of the Q4 data: while access remains uneven, it is the quality of the human conversation — not technology, tooling, or availability alone — that now represents the industry’s most persistent and consequential challenge.

Final Thought

Q4 2025 reinforces a clear national message: excellence in contact centre performance is achievable, but it is not yet consistent. The strongest performers continue to demonstrate that fast access and high-quality, human conversations can coexist — while others struggle to deliver one, the other, or both.

This matters because the contact centre remains one of the most operationally intensive and commercially influential functions in many organisations. When access is unreliable or conversations lack confidence and clarity, effort increases, resolution drops, and demand is pushed elsewhere — driving higher cost to serve and poorer outcomes.

By contrast, best-practice contact centres consistently show stronger efficiency, clearer decision outcomes, and higher conversion or resolution rates. They resolve more enquiries first time, reduce repeat contact, and make better use of frontline capacity — benefits that compound over time as volumes grow and environments become more complex.

As the national industry association, ACXPA exists to lift capability across the sector through independent benchmarking, shared standards, and evidence-based insight. The purpose of this report is not simply to rank performance, but to show where execution gaps are limiting results and what best practice looks like when those gaps are closed.

The leaders have shown what is possible. For the rest of the industry, the challenge is now unmistakable: deliver access that is reliable, conversations that are confident and effective, and a customer experience that earns trust — while operating more efficiently — every call, every time.