Fifth Quadrant’s 2021 APAC Customer Experience Maturity Report, sponsored by Verizon, provides a comprehensive analysis of how organisations are performing against the key attributes and enablers of customer experience.

To gain some insight into how Leaders are lifting and improving experience across all the enabling factors, Steve Nuttall interviewed Stephanie Bauer, head of CX Consulting at Fifth Quadrant, and Amelia Diggle, Service Design Lead at Verizon Connect.

After listening to the interview, you can find the key take outs and learnings about how to become a customer experience leader on the Fifth Quadrant website here.

Welcome to Episode 5 of the CX Of the Future Podcast, The Fork in the Road. This episode is all about the strategic direction to follow post-COVID. How companies are re-imagining and re-designing the CX of the future.

Hosted by Dr Steve Nuttall, Director at Fifth Quadrant and Mat Wells, Solutions Consultant at Verizon.

This week we are joined by Kris Lane and we welcome back Cary Cusumano. Kris is the UX Team Lead for Air New Zealand. Cary is Verizon's Principal Client Partner in CX Design Global Leader of CX Practice.

Together they discuss what will CX and EX look like in the future.  What is the workplace/workspace of the future? What technologies will be deployed? What customer communications channels will become the norm? What are the risks of turning the clock back?

Even before COVID-19, there was a trend of industries getting closer and closer to the customer, e.g. AI-enhanced automated financial coaches, apps that manage our health issues, and organisations that deliver point to point mobility services. We talk about the evolution of this trend.

Companies are evolving from being product-centric to being customer-centric and COVID has accelerated this change. In that evolution, how do you bring your whole organization along?

The culture of work from anywhere and flexibility is probably here to stay. What are the common elements that will determine the strategies for the new employee experience?

Many businesses are pivoting to a data centric culture to answer customer problems. How are you looking at data in the right way to arrive at the right solution for the customer?

Finally, what should companies stop doing, start doing and accelerate?

Relevant links.
CX Maturity Report
The 7 Stages of a Pandemic
Verizon Business
The Future of Work: Leadership
The Smart Workplace
OWLLabs State of Remote Work

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Welcome to Episode 4 of the CX Of The Future Podcast, Technology to the rescue. This episode is all about how companies rapidly moved from on premise to cloud hosted platforms and how this has opened up a Pandora’s box of CX opportunities.

Hosted by Dr Steve Nuttall, Director at Fifth Quadrant and Mat Wells, Solutions Consultant at Verizon.

This weeks guests have some great insights on how technology was deployed rapidly and at scale during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, and the innovations that are shaping the way we connect with our customers. We have JJ Bolton, Senior Product Manager, Verizon Enterprise Services and Rod Lester, the ANZ Managing Director for NICE.

Together they take a look at the rapid evolution and migration towards cloud technologies, induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Over the last ten years of CX technology, vendors were providing products and services that cost less and less and were easier to deliver. Yet, prior to the coronavirus outbreak so many contact centres were still operating with an expensive, hard to maintain, and disconnected technology infrastructure. Why has the industry been so slow to embrace these new technologies?

Are these just technology issues for Australian contact centres, reflecting our size and position in the world, or is it a global problem?

COVID-19 has been a massive wake up call, exposing the limitations of legacy premise platforms. At the start of the pandemic, how did companies rapidly move away from legacy premise platforms to cloud platforms and what were the drivers? 

What critical call deflection solutions for non-emergency calls and common questions did businesses introduce?

What role does automation and AI play in the future of CX?

Where do human customer service agents fit in an increasingly digital world?

Relevant links.
CX Maturity Report
The 7 Stages of a Pandemic
Verizon Business
The Future of Work: AI, ML & automation
The Smart Workplace

A discussion about the changes customers have faced. The channels they were forced to use, wait times, the impact on goods and services consumed, and the availability of shop fronts. We discuss the trend for VOC, NPS and other metrics during the initial period and how has it been trending since then.

Have customers been more tolerant and understanding or more intolerant of poor service due to the impact of Covid-19? What are the new experiences companies should be designing for?

Hosted by Dr Steve Nuttall, Director at Fifth Quadrant and Mat Wells, Solutions Consultant at Verizon.

This weeks guests include Amelia Diggle and Teresa Clarke. Amelia is a Service Designer at Verizon Connect. Teresa heads up client service management for enterprise and government customers at Verizon.

Together they talk about the future of designing customer experience, the shift of focus from technology to functional outcomes and problem solving.

This is the third episode in a series of discussions with business leaders about the customer experience of the future, providing valuable insights and tips to help businesses navigate their way through the current pandemic with speed and agility and deliver a great experience to both their customers and their employees.

Relevant links.
CX Maturity Report
The 7 Stages of a Pandemic
Verizon Business
The Smart Workplace
Connecting Employees and Customers

A discussion about the employee experience and ultimately how we design and create the new business culture that's needed in the current pandemic.

Hosted by Dr Steve Nuttall, Director at Fifth Quadrant and Mat Wells, Solutions Consultant at Verizon.

This weeks guests include Cary Cusumano and Gary McCourt. Cary is Verizon's Principal Client Partner in CX Design Global Leader of CX Practice. Gary is Head of the Operations Services Centre for BGIS.

Together they talk about the importance of Employee Experience and how companies who were leaders in this area managed the crisis better than most. What changed for employees and how did they cope with the change? What sort of increased demands were placed on employees as part of the broader change? What will the employee experience look like in the future? Will offshoring continue at pre-covid levels?

This is the second episode in a series of discussions with business leaders about the customer experience of the future, providing valuable insights and tips to help businesses navigate their way through the current pandemic with speed and agility and deliver a great experience to both their customers and their employees.

Relevant links.
CX Maturity Report
The 7 Stages of a Pandemic
Conversations in Isolation - Gary McCourt
Return to Business as Usual
The Future of Work - Connecting employees & customers

A discussion about the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic and how companies had to rapidly respond, pivoting to home working, managing staff, keeping customers served, and managing massive changes in technology requirements in weeks instead of months or years.

Hosted by Dr Steve Nuttall, Director at Fifth Quadrant and Mat Wells, Solutions Consultant at Verizon.

This weeks guests include Gordon Littley and Chris Luxford. Gordon is Verizon's Global Leader of CX Practice. Chris is a Change Agent and Senior Consultant for the Aspire Group.

Together we talk about the 7 stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, where we are at now and the next stages we are likely to move through.

This is the first in a series of discussions with business leaders about the customer experience of the future, providing valuable insights and tips to help businesses navigate their way through the current pandemic with speed and agility and deliver a great experience to both their customers and their employees.

Relevant links.
CX Maturity Report
The 7 Stages of a Pandemic
Return to Business as Usual
Rethinking Business Continuity