How Australia’s Best Organisation’s Are Breaking Conventional Wisdom to Improve Customer Experience, Reduce Costs and Build Better Services
Australia is entering another year of operational pressure. Businesses are navigating rising cost-of-living pressure, productivity stagnation, workforce fatigue, geopolitical uncertainty, housing affordability challenges, AI disruption and increasing customer expectations.
At the same time, organisation’s are still being asked to reduce operating costs, improve service quality, increase productivity, support employees and deliver measurable transformation outcomes.
The challenge is significant because many organisation’s are still struggling to convert transformation investment, particularly AI investment, into measurable operational value. This is supported by significant research. McKinsey’s 2025 State of AI research found that while AI adoption is now widespread, most organisation’s still struggle to scale AI into enterprise-level impact because workflows and operating models have not fundamentally changed. Gartner similarly predicts that at least 30% of generative AI projects will be abandoned after proof of concept because of poor data quality, inadequate governance, escalating costs or unclear business value. At the same time, customer experience quality globally remains under pressure. Forrester’s 2025 Global Customer Experience Index found that customer experience continues to decline in many markets because of weaker employee experience, disappointing technology implementations and economic volatility.
This creates a defining leadership question for Australian organisation’s:
How do you reduce costs while simultaneously improving customer experience, employee experience and operational performance?
That question sat at the centre of the CX Showcase 2026, hosted by Customer Science with support from Auscontact and leading industry partners.
The showcase brought together award-winning customer experience leaders and innovators from transport, financial services, healthcare, local government, accessibility services, insurance, software and enterprise technology to share practical examples of how they are transforming services across Australia.
One major theme emerged repeatedly throughout the day: Australia’s best service organisations are not optimising old ways of working. They are breaking conventional wisdom and building better operating models instead.
Metro Trains Sydney: Authenticity Beats Over-Scripted Service
The Conventional Wisdom This Challenged
Conventional wisdom says that customer service consistency comes from scripts, tighter process control, standardised wording, compliance and centrally managed interactions.
The assumption is that if employees say the “right thing” consistently, customer experience improves.
Over-scripted environments often reduce human connection, approachability, emotional trust and employee authenticity. Customers can feel when an interaction sounds processed, rather than genuine.
The Better Way This Speaker Proved
Katarina Oliveri from Metro Trains Sydney showed that stronger service outcomes can come from helping employees bring their authentic selves to work.
Metro Trains Sydney redesigned the service culture around trust, authenticity, purpose, leadership connection, team engagement, psychological safety and “moments over metrics.”
The organisation recognised that frontline employees did not lack capability. They lacked permission.
One of the defining moments in the presentation came from the statement:
“Because I don’t think I’m allowed to.”
Metro Trains Sydney changed that. Employees were supported to connect more genuinely with customers while still operating within a disciplined service environment.
The results were extraordinary, with Metro Trains Sydney achieving 98–99% customer satisfaction across November 2024 to February 2026.
For transport in New South Wales, already one of Australia’s strongest customer experience sectors, this represents a major achievement.
Nugget of Gold for Leaders
Do not design the humanity out of service.
Processes, standards and scripts matter, yet they should support human connection, not replace it.
The organisation’s creating the best customer experiences increasingly train people well, build trust, empower frontline teams and create environments where employees feel safe to connect authentically with customers.
AMP: AI Value Comes from Operating Model, Not Technology Alone
The Conventional Wisdom This Challenged
Conventional wisdom says organisation’s should start AI transformation with small, isolated pilots, limited access, innovation teams disconnected from operations and tightly controlled experimentation.
This often creates a major problem: AI remains trapped in pilot mode.
The organisation experiments with AI without embedding it into everyday operational workflows.
The Better Way This Speaker Proved
Gary Anderson from AMP showed that enterprise AI value comes from creating an operational model around AI, not just deploying technology.
AMP’s approach focused on three pillars.
- DemocratisingAI
AMP deployed Microsoft Copilot broadly across the organisation, allowing employees to learn AI, experiment safely, improve workflows and integrate AI into everyday work.
This created more than 70% daily AI usage across the organisation.
- Building an AI Centre of Excellence
AMP created a dedicated operational capability responsible for AI implementation, governance, business engagement, use-case development, leadership support and measurable value creation.
- Embedding AI Into Existing Platforms
Rather than creating disconnected AI tools, AMP integrated AI into existing operational systems and workflows, including Salesforce and agentic workforce solutions.
The results included a 3–8% uplift in ESAT, CSAT and First Call Resolution, as well as more than 70 hours per month of projected business development manager capacity gains.
This aligns strongly with McKinsey’s 2025 findings that organisation’s creating the strongest AI value redesign workflows and operating models rather than simply adding AI tools to existing processes.
Nugget of Gold for Leaders
AI needs ownership, workflow integration and operational accountability.
Do not treat AI as a side project.
The organisation’s creating measurable AI value are democratising safe AI access, embedding AI into workflows, building operational governance, creating dedicated accountability and redesigning work itself.
Expression Australia: Designing for Vulnerable Customers Creates Better Services for Everyone
The Conventional Wisdom This Challenged
Conventional wisdom says accessibility challenges are primarily solved through government reform, compliance programs, policy changes or long-term institutional transformation.
The problem is that vulnerable communities often remain underserved while systems evolve slowly.
Accessibility is also frequently treated as an “edge case” rather than a core service design principle.
The Better Way This Speaker Proved
Debbie Celenza from Expression Australia showed that accessibility can become a source of innovation rather than limitation.
Expression Australia deeply understood the lived experience of Deaf and hard-of-hearing Australians, particularly during emergency situations, healthcare interactions, sensitive conversations and community service access.
Rather than waiting for the broader system to solve the issue, the organisation built AEI and BODI as secure communication solutions designed specifically around visual communication and accessibility needs.
The outcomes were significant, with 3,122 app downloads, 1,755 calls handled and 297 critical Triple Zero emergencies supported.
These are not simply service interactions. These are potentially life-saving moments.
The importance of this work is amplified by the broader Australian context. The ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers reported Australia’s disability rate at 19.2% in 2022, highlighting the scale of accessibility need nationally.
Nugget of Gold for Leaders
Design around the people most at risk of exclusion.
When organisation’s build services around vulnerable customers, simplicity improves, trust improves, accessibility improves and customer experience improves for everyone.
Accessibility is not just compliance. It is one of the strongest sources of innovation in modern service design.
Teachers Health: Small Improvements Can Outperform Big Transformation Programs
The Conventional Wisdom This Challenged
Conventional wisdom says meaningful transformation requires major programs, big budgets, large transformation teams, enterprise-wide redesigns and long implementation timelines.
This mindset often delays improvement because organisation’s wait for the “perfect” transformation strategy before acting.
The Better Way This Speaker Proved
Reshma Joseph from Teachers Health showed that transformation can come from disciplined, incremental operational improvement.
Her “Small But Mighty” philosophy focused on workforce planning, coaching, KPI redesign, training, team engagement, failure demand reduction and continuous frontline listening.
Rather than relying on one major transformation initiative, Teachers Health improved many smaller operational elements simultaneously.
The results were dramatic. Product Review scores improved from 1.8 out of 5 to 4.8 out of 5, while average speed to answer reduced from approximately 15 minutes to under 60 seconds.
Nugget of Gold for Leaders
Do not wait for the perfect transformation program.
Find friction, listen to frontline teams, improve small operational elements quickly, measure benefits and repeat consistently.
Many small improvements executed well can outperform large, slow-moving transformation programs.
Central Coast Council: Resistance Can Become the Engine of Change
The Conventional Wisdom This Challenged
Conventional wisdom says that people resisting transformation are blockers who need to be managed around, replaced or removed.
This approach often wastes valuable operational insight.
The strongest critics frequently understand the operational pain points better than anyone else.
The Better Way Proved
Teresa Sialepis from Central Coast Council, recognised as the ASEA 2025 Customer Experience Advocate of the Year, demonstrated that resistance can be transformed into ownership.
Following council amalgamation, the organisation faced high attrition, long wait times, dissatisfaction, operational inconsistency and cultural fragmentation.
Teresa responded with radical transparency, open communication, visible accountability and genuine listening.
Most importantly, a highly vocal critic within the team was given a voice, ownership and the opportunity to contribute solutions.
The result was that the individual shifted from resisting change to helping champion it. Attrition reduced dramatically and customer outcomes improved alongside employee engagement.
Nugget of Gold for Leaders
Treat resistance as insight, not opposition.
The strongest detractors often care deeply about outcomes.
When organisation’s genuinely listen, include people and visibly act on feedback, resistance frequently becomes one of the strongest drivers of transformation success.
Canstar: High Performance Comes from Human Connection Plus Execution Discipline
The Conventional Wisdom This Challenged
Conventional wisdom says performance comes primarily from KPIs, governance, process design and operational discipline.
Those things matter. Yet they are not enough on their own.
The Better Way This Speaker Proved
Aneta Field from Canstar demonstrated that sustainable high performance comes from combining human connection, psychological safety, transparency, vulnerability and execution discipline.
Her leadership approach focuses heavily on authentic relationships, understanding people individually, honest communication and employee trust.
This created a highly effective operational innovation culture.
The results included 76 employee-generated ideas, 39% implemented within 12 months, 100% feedback loops and 4.8 out of 5 engagement scores.
Qualtrics’ 2025 consumer research similarly highlights that poor employee interactions remain one of the strongest drivers of negative customer experiences.
Nugget of Gold for Leaders
Do not collect employee ideas unless you are prepared to act on them.
Culture becomes commercially valuable when ideas are heard, feedback loops are closed, commitments are delivered and employees trust leadership to follow through.
nib and Smokeball: Transformation Is a Platform, Not a Project
The Conventional Wisdom This Challenged
Conventional wisdom treats transformation as a project, a fixed initiative or a temporary program.
The risk is that organisations stop improving after the first wave of success.
The Better Way This Session Proved
The returning speaker session featured Omer Khan from Smokeball and Tegan Judge from nib, facilitated by James Johnstone from Customer Science.
Both organisation’s demonstrated how the first wave of transformation creates the platform for further optimisation.
At nib, coaching capability evolved from a frontline focus into broader leadership development and operational consistency.
At Smokeball, AI and customer experience capability became a foundation for deeper optimisation around ethical AI, intelligence and customer loyalty.
The lesson from both organisation’s was clear: transformation compounds.
Nugget of Gold for Leaders
Do not “finish” transformation. Build a platform for continuous optimisation instead.
The strongest organisation’s learn continuously, optimise continuously and use each improvement to accelerate the next wave of value creation.
Technology Partner Panel: Innovation Comes from Ecosystems, Not Isolation
The Conventional Wisdom This Challenged
Conventional wisdom says businesses innovate internally while technology partners simply provide tools.
That view significantly undervalues the role of innovation ecosystems.
The Better Way This Session Proved
The technology panel featured Cisco Webex, Vonage, NICE and Verint.
The panel demonstrated that the future of AI and technology is shifting beyond cost reduction, automation and efficiency alone.
Technology is increasingly becoming human-centred, experience-aware, employee-enabled, ethically governed and operationally intelligent.
Examples discussed included democratised workforce scheduling, AI-supported knowledge delivery, real-time note generation, ethical AI governance and reduced administrative burden for frontline employees.
Salesforce’s State of Service research similarly highlights how AI is increasingly removing low-value administrative work so employees can focus on higher-value customer interactions.
The panel also reinforced that successful transformation depends heavily on service integration, workflow redesign, employee adoption, governance and operational fit.
This is where organisation’s such as Customer Science play a critical role by helping organisation’s integrate customer insight, service design, AI, workforce optimisation, operating models and technology transformation into measurable business outcomes.
Nugget of Gold for Leaders
Do not buy technology. Build better ways of working with the right partners.
Technology only creates value when it solves real customer problems, improves employee experience, integrates operationally and supports measurable business outcomes.
The Bigger Lesson: Australia’s Best Organisation’s Are Breaking Conventional Thinking
The CX Showcase 2026 was not simply a conference about customer experience.
It was a showcase of organisation’s breaking inherited assumptions about leadership, AI, service design, employee engagement, accessibility, operational improvement and innovation.
The event demonstrated that authenticity could outperform scripting, AI value requires workflow redesign, accessibility drives better service design, small improvements can outperform large transformation programs, resistance can become a source of innovation, human connection drives operational performance and ecosystems outperform isolated improvement efforts.
These are the “nuggets of gold” the CX Showcase was designed to reveal.
They matter because customer experience is not simply a business function.
It affects transport, healthcare, financial security, emergency services, government access, community wellbeing and everyday life for Australians.
The organisation’s improving customer experience most effectively are helping improve Australia itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is customer experience transformation?
Customer experience transformation involves redesigning services, operations, employee experiences and technology to improve customer outcomes, reduce friction and create measurable business value.
How do organisation’s reduce costs while improving customer experience?
Leading organisation’s improve customer experience while reducing costs by removing friction, reducing failure demand, improving workforce capability, using AI effectively and redesigning workflows operationally.
What is the role of AI in customer experience?
AI is increasingly used to support employees, improve service consistency, reduce administration, improve operational intelligence, personalise interactions and automate repetitive work.
Why is employee experience important to customer experience?
Employee experience strongly influences customer interactions, service quality, innovation, retention and operational consistency. Highly engaged teams typically create stronger customer outcomes.
How do you improve customer service in Australia?
The strongest Australian service organisation’s are improving customer service by listening deeply to customers and employees, designing around vulnerable communities, improving coaching, using AI practically and continuously optimising operational workflows.
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2026). Consumer Price Index, Australia, March 2026. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/mar-2026
Forrester. (2025). Forrester’s 2025 Global Customer Experience Index Rankings. Forrester Research. Retrieved from https://www.forrester.com/press-newsroom/forrester-global-customer-experience-index-2025-rankings/
Gartner. (2024). Gartner Predicts 30% of Generative AI Projects Will Be Abandoned After Proof of Concept by End of 2025. Gartner Research. Retrieved from https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2024-07-29-gartner-predicts-30-percent-of-generative-ai-projects-will-be-abandoned-after-proof-of-concept-by-end-of-2025
McKinsey & Company. (2025). The State of AI 2025. McKinsey Global Survey on AI. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai
Qualtrics. (2025). 2025 Consumer Experience Trends Report. Qualtrics XM Institute. Retrieved from https://www.qualtrics.com/articles/news/increased-expectations-declining-loyalty-qualtrics-announces-2025-consumer-experience-trends/
Salesforce. (2025). State of Service Report. Salesforce Research. Retrieved from https://www.salesforce.com/blog/state-of-service/
Customer Science. (2026). AI Accelerator Program. Customer Science. Retrieved from https://customerscience.com.au/ai-accelerator/
Customer Science. (2026). Customer Science Website. Customer Science. Retrieved from https://customerscience.com.au/