Businesses spend a lot of time looking for ways to improve customer experience. They invest in new software, review their service processes and explore how AI can help their teams work more efficiently.
Yet some of the biggest improvements can come from problems employees deal with every day: manually entering customer details, preparing reports in spreadsheets, managing calls across different locations or relying on phone systems that are difficult to update.
These issues might seem small individually. Over time, however, they can affect productivity, service quality and a business's ability to grow.
For companies across Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), the challenge is understanding which changes will make a genuine difference to their customers and their teams.
Kaizn's work with businesses in different industries offers some useful examples of what can happen when organisations take a closer look at how their customer communications operate.
When manual work starts holding a business back
For Australian lead generation agency That's Intelligent, manual dialling and reporting had become a growing burden.
Agents were copying phone numbers from spreadsheets into a dialler, recording call outcomes manually and updating reports at the end of the day. As the business managed more campaigns, this process took up valuable time and made it harder to scale.
Working with Kaizn, the company implemented the MaxContact contact centre platform, with workflows and reporting configured around its campaign requirements.
The results were substantial. Agent call volumes more than doubled, campaign capacity per agent increased by 65%, and automated reporting saved two to three hours of administrative work each day.
The change also gave the business greater capacity to manage multiple campaigns without increasing the team at the same pace.
For other businesses, the lesson is worth considering. Before adding more people or asking existing employees to work faster, it can be useful to examine how much time is being spent on repetitive tasks that technology solutions could handle.
Read: That's Intelligent customer story
Growth requires the right foundations
Technology decisions can be particularly important when a business is building a new operation.
Advance Impact faced this challenge when it decided to establish a tele-fundraising contact centre. The company needed a platform that could support its initial requirements while allowing it to bring on new clients and campaigns as the operation grew.
Kaizn helped the business select and implement MaxContact, with attention given to campaign setup, reporting, staff training and the process for launching new campaigns.
Since implementation, advance Impact has onboarded more than 10 clients and delivered over 160,000 donor interactions. Its published customer story also reports 100% system uptime since go-live and contact rates consistently above 63%.
Having the right systems in place from the beginning helped the business build a repeatable approach to launching campaigns and supporting growth.
For growing companies, this highlights the importance of considering future requirements alongside immediate needs. A solution should be practical for the team today while providing space to accommodate changing workloads and new customers.
Read: Advance Impact customer story
Customer experience starts before someone answers the phone
Customer experience is often associated with the conversation between a customer and an employee. The systems behind that conversation matter just as much.
Beach Property Group, a property management business on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, had been using an older phone system that depended on external technicians for basic changes. The business also relied on a personal mobile number as its main contact number.
For a team managing properties across multiple locations, this created unnecessary complications.
Kaizn helped replace the legacy system with a cloud-based communications platform, including a dedicated 1800 number, an interactive voice response (IVR) menu and out-of-hours call routing. Staff could also communicate through a unified platform using their mobile devices.
The new setup gave the business more control over its phone system and helped provide guests with a consistent, professional point of contact.
This example shows why customer experience deserves attention beyond the contact centre itself. The first call, the way an enquiry is routed and the ability to reach the right person all influence how a customer views a business.
Read the Beach Property Group customer story.
How AI is Changing Customer Service and Contact Centres?
These examples also raise an important question for businesses exploring AI
which problems should they solve first?
AI can support contact centre teams through conversation summaries, agent assistance, automated quality reviews and the handling of suitable routine enquiries. Depending on the solution, it can also help businesses identify patterns in customer conversations and spot opportunities to improve service.
However, the value of these features depends on the environment in which they are introduced.
If employees are already dealing with disconnected systems or unclear processes, adding another solution may create additional work. Businesses need to understand their current operations, assess their data and integration requirements and then decide where AI can deliver a practical benefit to them.
The same thinking applies to contact centre platforms, CRM systems and cloud communications tools such as Zoom. Each should have a clear purpose within the wider customer experience strategy.
Measure what changes then keep improving
Before starting a technology project, businesses should identify the outcomes they want to achieve. That could mean reducing administrative work, improving call resolution, making it easier for customers to reach the right team or giving managers better visibility into performance.
Once a solution is introduced, those outcomes should be measured and reviewed. Feedback from employees and customers can help identify what is working and where further changes are needed.
This approach also makes it easier to prioritise future investment. Businesses can build on improvements that have demonstrated value rather than introducing technology simply because it is available.
Kaizn works with organisations across Australia and New Zealand on customer experience and technology advisory, contact centre solutions, Zoom, cloud communications and AI-powered technologies.
The customer stories above demonstrate how improvements to everyday systems and processes can support business performance. For companies considering their next technology investment, a useful first step is to look closely at where customers and employees encounter friction, then decide which changes are most likely to improve the experience.