The second pillar involves process redesign. Queensland Treasury has partnered with the Queensland University of Technology to learn more about what taxpayers, industry and staff need from Treasury, to allow it to redesign processes to better meet their needs.

Says McKee: “What they want is to access our systems securely at a time of their choice, on a device of their choice. They also want to know why we’re collecting their data, how we’re storing it and how this benefits them.”

The third, most ambitious pillar is the digitisation of Treasury’s systems, involving 46 initiatives across three years, of different sizes, complexity and risk. The end goal is the migration of its systems to a secure data centre in which only government tenants are allowed.

McKee says data is critical for this pillar. “It’s at the heart of everything we do. We want to be able to use that data for our transactional and external systems. It gives us a very stable core. We have a really strong data warehouse and we’ve cleaned and de-identified our data, which is a challenge for many organisations. Our data hub now orchestrates the data and we have an analytic cloud, which allows almost Google-type searches of all our data holdings across our transactional systems. But it’s very simple to use.”

So far, Treasury has delivered 31 of its 46 initiatives on time and on budget. “We have another seven in flight, with the remaining ones to be delivered by 30 June next year,” he adds.

The fourth pillar is workforce strategy. Treasury has sought advice about how to shape its workforce towards 2023 when the transformation project is slated to be finalised, after which time the department will hand over to an innovation team.

“The idea is to be able to leverage all this beautiful technology we’re delivering,” McKee explains. “It’s about shifting our current skillset and ensuring job security. In the past we routinely received queries about whether machines will replace people’s jobs. Now people want to know how machines will help people do their job.”

The exciting new technologies Treasury is implementing includes machine learning, which can predict with more than 70 per cent accuracy when a land tax payer may default on their debt. This was previously a challenge for Treasury, given 20 per cent of the state’s land tax payers don’t pay their debt on time, whereas just 2 per cent of other taxpayers don’t pay their tax on time.

Thanks to the ability its new technologies deliver to identify people who are likely to default on their land tax bill, Treasury can now proactively remind taxpayers to pay their land tax bill through digital tools such as SMS messages or email. It can also invite them to consider a repayment plan or give them other options so they don’t default.

“This benefits taxpayers as it reduces the risk of them defaulting and then paying a fine. It also benefits the government as it gets more revenue earlier to fund essential services,” McKee says.

The next step to improving Treasury services and the citizen experience was understanding the reasons why some taxpayers were defaulting. This required a platform where taxpayers could give continuous feedback about their interactions with the Treasury. By combining the citizen experience data (X-data) with existing operational data (O-data), the Treasury can create a holistic picture of service delivery and generate actionable insights into how to improve.

This allowed the Treasury to bridge experience gaps by understanding what led to negative sentiments and why citizens were unable to pay their obligation on time. As a result, the Treasury changed its approach and began proactively offering financial assistance and support to those in need, before they had defaulted.

Treasury is expecting a substantial return of $200 million from this project, the cost for which is $80 million. It also supports the state government’s goal to deliver responsive governance, which benefits taxpayers.

Says McKee: “It’s all about building an intelligent Treasury department and we’re on track to achieve that.”

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Sigma now uses this feedback to further develop its technology, he explains. “We ask our customers what they want, act on that feedback and then measure our success. It’s a really powerful tool to find out whether we’re going in the right direction.”

Key to the process is the ability to analyse sentiment across the customer base, to allow it to focus on changes that are going to make a big, positive difference to the company. Sigma combines the insights it gleans through technology with information about customer sentiment it collects face-to-face when talking with pharmacists instore and also at events and conferences.

Being able to combine this information gives the business an understanding of what’s truly important to customers. This avoids placing too much emphasis on issues raised during one-off focus groups, which may be important to that group, but may not be as critical to the wider pharmacy cohort.

An example is a recent focus group that involved an important group of pharmacy owners. They had concerns around Sigma’s search engine marketing.

“We had been working on search and our analysis showed search wasn’t a primary concern across the customer base. But it was for that focus group at that time. So while the feeling and the sentiment immediately in that workshop was valid, search was less of a priority for the greater customer base,” Shaw explains.

Had the business decided to redouble its efforts on search just based on the feedback from the focus group, it may have missed responding to customers’ other concerns it was able to glean from a more comprehensive sentiment analysis. This showed inventory accuracy – being able to tell customers when an out-of-stock item would be back in stock – was more important than search across the board.

Sydney University’s professor of marketing, Vince Mitchell, also stresses how important it is for businesses to seek immediate, regular feedback from customers to drive business decisions.

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions and all businesses find feedback nourishing,” Mitchell says. “Previous tracking of ‘how are we doing in general?’ on customer experience has been replaced with ‘how did we do today or on this transaction?’”

Online pop ups, mobile texts, end-of-call surveys or social media feeds can be used to generate real-time feedback to build a much more detailed and actionable picture of customer experience.

Nevertheless, Mitchell concedes measuring sentiment can be tricky. “You need to have the right ‘dictionary’ of words that are bespoke to your brand to get an accurate read on sentiment.”

He also says it’s important to use multiple touchpoints including online, telephone, instore, face-to-face and email when measuring sentiment. “You can analyse positive and negative reviews online, but this only covers one touchpoint and only people who use social media. So making conclusions from this is difficult.”

As for what’s next for Sigma on its journey to use technology to get closer to its customers, Shaw says they are working on harnessing customer feedback to drive greater loyalty.

“We do that by continuing to measure our net promoter score. It’s shifted more than 60 points in the past 18 months. This gives us faith we’re doing the right thing. If customers appreciate we’re giving them a better experience, this builds trust, which will lead to even greater business benefits down the track.”

Looking at experience data (X-data) can help show how employees are feeling about where they work and help to find engagement solutions for shared success.

“If you can’t invest in both the customer and employee experience, then invest in the employee experience because that will lead to better results for customers in the long run,” Bradshaw says.

At 51ˇçÁ÷Australia & New Zealand, HR head Debbie Rigger, says her team has been tracking X-data and working to optimise these types of employee experiences. Putting people at the centre of the business plan like this is a move that has seen 51ˇçÁ÷place seventh on the 2019 Best Places to Work list as ranked by global workplace consultants Great Place to Work.

“In recent years, People & Culture leaders have been actively dedicating time and resources to improving the employee experience and developing the right culture to engage, motivate, and inspire their workforce,” Rigger says.

“X-data reveals the employee experience. It’s the human data, or the beliefs, emotions, and intentions that tell you why employees are leaving the organisation or why candidates are rejecting offers.

“Capturing employees’ experience data, and where the experience gaps exist, provides a baseline for HR to begin making improvements that will deliver real business results.

“The best People & Culture leaders today must care as much — or more — about employees as they do customers. It means redesigning experiences with the end user in mind across every HR touchpoint.”

Andrew Morris, director of recruitment firm Robert Half, says attracting a cohort of talent that combine soft skills, brand expertise and analytical insight to help enhance the customer experience journey across the enterprise assists in retaining business and growing revenue.

Morris says to drive customer experience, staff also need analytical skills to track and analyse customer encounters to identify errors, inconsistencies and areas of improvement. “This in-depth knowledge is critical to developing new products, marketing plans and engagement strategies.”

But optimising employee experiences to create customer-focused and engaged workers like this ultimately relies on the right approach from everyone in the business and setting the tone from the top.

Importantly, says VW’s Bradshaw, employers must demonstrate values that attract people, who in turn transmit those values back to customers. This helps to build the right culture and employee experiences to spur the business on to success.

“Customer experience is everybody’s job, especially the leadership team, because they are the ones who give staff permission to embrace creativity, innovation and environments that breed success,” he says.

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Commenting on the best way to engage with consumers, Sydney university academic Vince Mitchell says understanding what they want involves thoroughly researching their behaviour and attitudes.

“This can range from watching how people buy and eat, to getting them to answer survey questions, to listening in on what people say on social media or in focus groups. It’s particularly important to have a range of methods. As [British advertising legend David Ogilvy] once said, ‘People don’t think how they feel, don’t say what they think and don’t do what they say’,” says Mitchell.

It’s important to Chobani to take a very personal approach to its interactions with its customers.

“Marketing used to be about a one-way dialogue with consumers,” says Voronina. “That’s completely changed – now consumers have a voice; they co-create your value. We have transcended mass marketing because we find the time to treat every person as an individual. We have so many personal stories from people who contact us who might be battling cancer or trying to lose weight. We record every interaction and follow up with them later, checking in and maintaining that relationship.”

Mitchell says it’s important to have formal processes for involving consumers and incentivising them to become involved in product development.

“From early-stage market research, ask them about what they like and dislike about current offerings on the market,” he says. “Test concepts with them and allow them to play with prototypes or even buy them in simulated online or real life stores. Many companies co-create or use customer ideas as the inspiration for their products.”

The Chobani team’s dedication is also a critical part of its success. Says Voronina: “Every employee knows the values, what the brand stands for and what it takes to deliver a truly exceptional experience. When everyone is responsible for the brand experience, your business becomes something really different.”

Chobani also brings retailers along with it on its journey. “We deal with our business partners in the same way we engage with our consumers. We aim to surprise and delight companies that have worked with us for a long time in the same way we do with our consumers; that’s very, very important.”

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She uses shopping at David Jones’ flagship Elizabeth Street Sydney store as an example. Traditionally, the pianist playing a grand piano on the ground floor, and the high level of customer service the business offers, made shoppers feel special – and they have been prepared to pay a premium. The current $200-million redevelopment for the space aims to enhance this.

“Offering a true theatre of experience when, really, all you are offering is a transaction, makes all the difference,” Ganschow says.

Apple is another example. “It has mastered customer experience. All its devices are on show in their stores, and there’s lots of staff on the floor, so you get a high level of service and engagement. When you choose to buy something, you don’t have to queue up at the cash register, you can do the transaction then and there,” says Ganschow.

The message for other businesses is to focus on addressing customers’ pain points to offer the best possible experience.

“You need to do this in a way that’s so intuitive and easy, they keep coming back for more. You have to make sure you engage both the head and the heart to design an optimal customer experience. It’s easy to get buried in the transactional nature of customer experience. But making a purchase involves a high degree of emotion. So, when organisations think about how they’re interacting with customers, they must emphasise both.”

51ˇçÁ÷head of marketing ANZ Rushenka Perera says consumer expectations of the buying experience are much higher now, given they are able to access all the information they need in real time, thanks to technology.

“They want everything faster and they have high expectations of companies. But they tell us there’s often a real experience gap in terms of what companies think they offer and what customers think they receive.”

Research backs this up. According to a survey by consulting firm Bain & Co, 80 per cent of CEOs think they’re providing a great customer experience – but only 8 per cent of their customers agree.

Yoghurt firm Chobani is one business that is bucking this trend, Perera says. Since launching in Australia in 2012, Chobani has used experience to become the country’s fastest growing yogurt brand.

“Chobani realised it needed to get feedback from customers to improve their product. After asking the market about what people wanted, it found some customers wanted a different kind of product to the one they were offering. This group were eating breakfast differently. Some were skipping breakfast all together. So Chobani came up with new products.” An example is the yoghurt pouch container it pioneered in its category.

“Chobani championed the pouch, based on market research and feedback from customers captured by its 51ˇçÁ÷Qualtrics platform. That feedback loop is really important in the experience economy to bridge the expectation gap. Companies need to get that feedback from customers, look at the data they have in their systems and respond to it,” says Perera.

This involves collecting testimonials and reviews and conducting surveys to get a greater understanding about how to improve products and services. Then, it’s important to marry this with operational data contained in backend financial, manufacturing and supply chain systems to be able to deliver customers the experiences they are seeking.

That’s the best way to cater to the experiential expectations of customers, to achieve a great outcome for buyers and for the businesses from which they buy.