The #1 CX Forum in Australia
Experience the Most Valuable Gathering Across The
Entire Customer Experience Ecosystem
August 5-6, 2026
| The Atrium, Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne
The Customer Show - Day 1 Agenda
Main Track
8:00 am - 8:50 am
Registration & Coffee
8:50 am - 9:00 am
Chair Opening Remarks
Jason Smith -
Founder Fresh View Advisory, Former Director of Customer Experience,
Foxtel Group
Chair Opening Remarks - Jason Smith
Foxtel Group
Jason Smith
Founder Fresh View Advisory, Former Director of Customer ExperienceFoxtel Group
9:00 am - 9:40 am
Keynote Panel: The Big CX Debate: Where Should Leaders Invest — Cost Control, AI Scale or Customer-Led Growth?
Simon Reiter -
Chief Technology Officer,
Aware Super
Kanika Puri - Chief Operating Officer, Fast Cover
Michele Fitzgerald - Chief Operating Officer, The Oodie
Jason Smith - Founder Fresh View Advisory, Former Director of Customer Experience, Foxtel Group
- Should investment prioritise containment or conversion?
- How far can AI scale before governance risk outweighs productivity gain?
- Is loyalty investment outperforming acquisition in margin terms?
- Where does personalisation deliver true incrementality versus noise?
- How should leaders sequence cost reduction and growth initiatives under margin pressure?
- What are the 2–3 non-negotiable bets for the next 12 months?
Jason Smith
Founder Fresh View Advisory, Former Director of Customer ExperienceFoxtel Group
9:40 am - 10:10 am
Presentation: Adventure Meets AI - Inside Intrepid Travel’s CX Transformation
Michelle Ouw -
GM Sales and Customer,
Intrepid
Shreya Sethi - Head of Sales, Sierra Ai
Intrepid Travel built its brand on real human adventure - so how does the world's most purpose-driventravel company weave AI into the front line of its customer experience?
In this fireside chat, Michelle Ouw, GM of Sales & Customer at Intrepid Travel, sits down with Shreya Sethi,Regional VP at Sierra, to share an honest look at Intrepid's AI journey: the business case that made it urgent, the change management realities, and the moment it clicked that it was working.
Michelle will also explore what is next - evolving from an agent that answers questions to one that helps customers book and transact.
CX leaders at any stage of their AI journey will leave with practical lessons on where to start, what to avoid, and how to keep their customers at the centre of it all.
10:10 am - 10:40 am
Case Study: Why Transformation Fails: The Human Factors Behind AI Adoption, Risk and Real Change
Simon Reiter -
Chief Technology Officer,
Aware Super
A focused case study on CareSuper's experience progressing AI initiatives from early pilots through to production, with a clear emphasis on governance, risk and real-world adoption.
The session will explore how AI has been introduced across the organisation, and where programmes have faced friction - particularly in moving from proof of concept to scalable, embedded capability. It will examine the role of governance frameworks, risk controls and operating model decisions in either enabling or slowing progress.
It will share practical learnings from this journey including design choices, governance guardrails and adoption challenges as well as how human factors such as trust, behaviour and resistance have shaped outcomes.
10:40 am - 11:00 am
Speed Networking
11:00 am - 11:30 am
Morning Break
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Interactive Discussion Groups: Facilitated, peer-led session focused on open discussion and practical insight-sharing
Nicholas Kontopoulos -
Vice President of Marketing, Asia Pacific & Japan,
Twillio
Lisa Khatri - Head of Customer Experience GTM Strategy, APJ, Qualtrics
Arnaud Picard - Head of Customer, Prospend
1. Fixing the Magic Sequence: Moving Beyond the "Quick-Fix" Tech Trap to True CX Transformation – Nicholas Kontopoulos, Vice President of Marketing, Asia Pacific & Japan, Twilio
2. Unifying customer data to drive scalable, personalised experiences across the lifecycle - Arnaud Picard, Head of Customer, Pro spend
3. Why Insights Don't Translate to Action and How to Fix It - Lisa Khatri, Head of Customer Experience GTM Strategy, APJ - Qualtrics
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Lunch Break
Afternoon Streams
2:00 pm - 2:40 pm Panel Discussion: Industrialising Service Recovery: Protecting Retention While Reducing Remediation Cost
Alicia George - Head of Customer Care ANZ, LifehealthcareRachel Lane - Head of Customer Support, The Lottery Office
Kieran Boyce - General Manager Operations, MECCA Brands
- Clarifying ownership to eliminate repeat contacts and protect at-risk customers
- Strengthening root-cause governance to reduce defect-driven churn
- Accelerating triage in high-value segments to protect lifetime value
- Balancing policy flexibility with commercial risk controls
- Measuring recovery effectiveness in retention, margin and cost-to-serve terms
2:40 pm - 3:10 pm Presentation: The Worst Customer Experience I Ever Designed: Five Lessons From Leading Customer Operations Through Change
Sarah Chamberlain - Head of Customer Operations, Australian Motoring ServicesNo organisation sets out to create a poor customer experience. Yet every day, well-intentioned organisations unintentionally create friction through complex processes, internal handoffs, organisational structures, disconnected metrics and technology that amplifies the problems already embedded in the way work gets done.
Drawing on real-world experience leading customer operations, transformation, complaints, quality and operational improvement, this session explores five lessons from one of the worst customer experiences the speaker ever helped design — and what it revealed about creating better experiences at scale.
The session will explore:
• Customers don't care about our org chart — why internal ownership models and organisational boundaries so often create friction for customers.
• What makes sense internally doesn't always make sense to customers — how processes designed for operational efficiency can create unnecessary complexity and effort.
• Complaints are a free consulting service — how organisations can move beyond simply resolving complaints to using them as a source of insight and improvement.
• Technology amplifies the process it sits on top of — why AI and automation cannot fix fundamentally broken processes, and how transformation must start with understanding the problem.
• The best ideas usually come from the frontline — why the people closest to customers often have the clearest view of what needs to change.
3:10 pm - 3:50 pm Coffee Break & Demo Drive
3:50 pm - 4:20 pm Case Study: Redesigning Contact Centre Operations: Improving Efficiency, Experience and Team Performance at Oodie
Michele Fitzgerald - Chief Operating Officer, The OodieLauren Oliver - Customer Experience Manager, The Oodie
Join Chief Operating Officer, Michele Fitzgerald, and Head of CX, Lauren Oliver, for a review of the transformational changes made to the CX team at The Oodie.
This case study will walk through how The Oodie completely redesigned their organisational structure and embraced technology to overcome their peak season challenges.
Find out how Oodie:
- Achieved a reduction in first response time during peak season from 4 days to 44 seconds
- Rolled out automation and help centers which reduced tickets by 50% across the year
- Enabled a more stable agent base throughout the year, that has improved quality of responses and boosted CSAT scores
2:00 pm - 2:40 pm Panel Discussion: Loyalty as a Profit Engine: Retention, Frequency and Margin Economics
Jaimi Farrey - Group Senior Loyalty & CRM Manager, Hanes Brands AustralasiaPascale McBain - Head of Digital, Customer Experience, Bakers Delight
Christopher Douglas - Member Services Director for Pacific, Accor Plus
Adam Posner - Customer loyalty specialist / CEO: The Point of Loyalty / Author: for Love or Mo, The Point of Loyalty
- Insight into organisations who are repositioning loyalty from a rewards led function to a measurable commercial growth engine
- How behavioural data is being used to predict and prevent churn
- Evaluating how owned channels such as email, SMS, apps and wallets are being activated as revenue-generating assets
- Learn how leading teams are embedding incrementality testing to prove true financial impact
- How organisations are driving retention, frequency and margin through loyalty strategies directly accountable to commercial outcomes
Adam Posner
Customer loyalty specialist / CEO: The Point of Loyalty / Author: for Love or MoThe Point of Loyalty
2:40 pm - 3:10 pm Presentation: Technology Tunnel Vision: Why Better Cx Requires More Than Better Tech
Nicholas Kontopoulos - Vice President of Marketing, Asia Pacific & Japan, TwillioThe most common mistake in CX transformation isn't choosing the wrong technology. It's reaching for technology before the harder work is done.
Across industries, organisations rush toward platforms, AI, and automation in search of a shortcut, while the real barriers sit upstream: misaligned stakeholders, fragmented processes, and teams that aren'tset up to deliver on the brand promise in the first place. Until those fundamentals are addressed, more technology means more complexity, not more progress.
Real transformation starts with a clear view of the customer, and builds outward from there. People need the context and capability to act. Processes need to be designed around outcomes, not legacy habits. And technology, when it finally enters the picture, should amplify what good already looks like rather than paper over what doesn't work.
3:10 pm - 3:50 pm Coffee Break & Demo Drive
3:50 pm - 4:20 pm Presentation: Loyalty Isn't A Program: What Dough Getters Taught Us About Emotional Loyalty
Pascale McBain - Head of Digital, Customer Experience, Bakers DelightAndrea Biagnini - Loyalty Program Manager, Bakers Delight
When Bakers Delight set out to review its Dough Getters loyalty program, the biggest discovery wasn't about points or rewards—it was about what loyalty actually means to customers. Research with more than 1,000 customers and 130 franchisees revealed that loyalty is driven primarily by trust, love, advocacy and feeling valued, rather than transactions alone. While Dough Getters has a measurable impact on purchase decisions, spend and customer advocacy, the findings suggest that the most successful loyalty programs don't create loyalty—they strengthen the emotional connection customers already have with a brand. This session will share the key insights from the research and explore what they mean for the future of customer loyalty, engagement and brand growth.
4:20 pm - 4:50 pm
Fireside Chat: From Feedback to Revenue: Insight into how Crown Resorts is Operationalising Voice of Customer for Retention and Growth, delivering +20 NPS
Simona Davtyan -
CX Manager,
Crown Resorts
Adam Posner - Customer loyalty specialist / CEO: The Point of Loyalty / Author: for Love or Mo, The Point of Loyalty
- This session will explore how Voice of Customer (VoC) data can be translated into real operational and commercial decisions, using examples from operations within The Crown.
- It will highlight how customer feedback and NPS insights were used at The Crown to identify service gaps, prioritise change, and drive measurable improvements — including a +20 point increase in NPS.
- The session will also share an example where VoC insights led to a negative outcome, unpacking the key lessons learned and how this informed a more effective approach moving forward.
- Attendees will gain a practical view of how to use VoC beyond reporting, to guide decision-making and deliver tangible impact.
Adam Posner
Customer loyalty specialist / CEO: The Point of Loyalty / Author: for Love or MoThe Point of Loyalty
Main Track
4:50 pm - 5:30 pm
Panel Discussion: Optimising Workforce Performance: Protecting Margin Through Capability and Productivity
Mitchell Palmer -
Chief Operating Officer,
Aussie Industries
Lauren Reid - Head of Member Experience, BankVic
Cindy Dent - Director of Customer Experience, Airtasker
Jason Smith - Founder Fresh View Advisory, Former Director of Customer Experience, Foxtel Group
- Improving forecasting and workforce planning to reduce volatility and cost pressure
- Elevating coaching and frontline capability to improve first-contact resolution in high-value journeys
- Redesigning roles and team structures as automation removes lower-value work
- Protecting experienced capability to stabilise quality and reduce churn risk
- Linking productivity gains back to measurable outcomes such as unit cost, retention and margin
Jason Smith
Founder Fresh View Advisory, Former Director of Customer ExperienceFoxtel Group
5:30 pm - 5:40 pm
Chair Closing Remarks
Jason Smith -
Founder Fresh View Advisory, Former Director of Customer Experience,
Foxtel Group
Jason Smith
Founder Fresh View Advisory, Former Director of Customer ExperienceFoxtel Group
5:40 pm - 6:40 pm
Networking Drinks & End of Day 1
7:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Download the Official Agenda for more!
Want to learn more about what's happening at The Customer Show Exec Forum? Download the Official Agenda here for more information.
