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 - Agenda Day 2
Main Track
9:00 am - 9:10 am
Chair Opening Remarks
Christopher Douglas -
Member Services Director for Pacific,
Accor Plus
9:10 am - 9:50 am
Keynote Panel: From Cost Centre to Growth Engine: Monetising CX Across Retention, Margin and Lifetime Value
Matthew Murdoch -
Chief Customer Officer,
PassportCard
Vanessa Wong - Head of Customer Experience, Cleanaway Waste Management Ltd
Christopher Douglas - Member Services Director for Pacific, Accor Plus
- Reframing CX from support function to profit lever
- Anchoring investment to retention, frequency and margin
- Reducing leakage across journeys to stabilise demand and protect profitability
- Balancing acquisition growth with service sustainability
- Operationalising trust to protect long-term customer value
9:50 am - 10:20 am
Fireside Chat: How AI-Led Workflow Redesign Transformed Customer Experience at Airtasker by 88%
Cindy Dent -
Director of Customer Experience,
Airtasker
Christopher Douglas - Member Services Director for Pacific, Accor Plus
- How to identify where your team truly adds human value and what can be handed to AI, without losing the customer experience that matters most
- What it actually looks like to redesign workflows mid-flight while simultaneously scaling into new markets and moving to an omni-channel model
- Practical lessons from running AI workshops with your team to build capability, reduce headcount pressure and future-proof your customer operations
- How AI-Led Workflow Redesign Transformed Customer Experience at Airtasker by 88%
10:20 am - 10:50 am
Presentation: The Worst Customer Experience I Ever Designed: Five Lessons From Leading Customer Operations Through Change
Sarah Chamberlain -
Head of Customer Operations,
Australian Motoring Services
No 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.
10:50 am - 11:20 am
Morning Break
11:20 am - 12:20 pm
Interactive Discussion Groups
MD Kabir -
Group Customer Experience Manager,
Sutton Tools
Christopher Cramond - General Manager Member Strategy, Product & Experience, Aware Super
Table 1: Scaling AI in Customer Service: From Pilot Programs to Real Performance Gains
Facilitator: MD Kabir, Group Customer Experience Manager, Sutton Tools
Table 2: Rewiring Operating Models: AI Changing Work Design Expectations, Achieving Durable Productivity
Facilitator: Christopher Cramond, Head of Member Strategy, Product & Experience, AwareSuper
Table 3: The Orchestration Advantage: Why AI ROI Depends on Connecting the Dots, Not Just Deploying AI Tools
Facilitator: Sara Talat, Former Group Loyalty and Customer Engagement – Just Group
12:20 pm - 1:20 pm
Lunch Break
Main Track
1:20 pm - 1:50 pm
Presentation: Modernising Contact Centre Operations: Legacy Service Economics Driving Higher Cost-to-Serve, Improving FCR while Lowering Unit Cost
Kim Phillips -
Head of Customer Operations and Tyro Health,
Tyro
A practical, execution-focused workshop unpacking how legacy contact centre models are driving unnecessary cost-to-serve — and what leaders need to change to improve performance without increasing spend.
The session will explore:
• How to reduce repeat contact, improve first contact resolution (FCR), and streamline frontline operations by addressing root causes, simplifying processes, and modernising tooling.
• Move beyond theory, to focus on tangible ways to lower unit cost while protecting (and improving) customer experience — giving attendees clear actions to stabilise demand, reduce inefficiency, and drive more commercially sustainable service operations.
1:50 pm - 2:20 pm
Case Study: Redesigning Mobile Customer Journeys: Driving Onboarding, Retention and Customer Value
Alena Jang Croucher -
Head of Customer Lifecycle Management,
HSBC Bank
This session focuses on how mobile has been repositioned from a service channel into a commercially accountable growth engine, with a practical lens on execution and measurable impact.
We'll cover:
• Repositioning mobile from a service channel to a commercially accountable growth engine
• Redesigning onboarding and early-life journeys to improve conversion and retention -including driving mobile activation rates for new customers at month one on book and improving account activation through smarter onboarding design
• Embedding decisioning and personalisation into mobile customer journeys to drive 30-day active engagement and sustained account usage
• Aligning product, CX and data teams around shared commercial outcomes tied to real behavioural metrics
• Measuring impact across acquisition cost, retention and lifetime value
• Moving from app optimisation to true commercialisation through operational and organisational change
2:20 pm - 2:30 pm
Afternoon Break
2:30 pm - 3:00 pm
Presentation: Building Trust & Not Getting Fined: Getting Consent Across Channels Right
Matthew Stuckings -
CRM and Lifecycle Manager,
Bared Footwear
Over the last 18 months Australian businesses have paid over $6.7 million in spam penalties. Don't be one of them.
A dynamic, highly interactive session exploring how consent really works across modern customer journeys and how global differences are reshaping both compliance and commercial strategy.
It begins with a sharp 15-minute overview of consent principles, what "good" looks like beyond compliance, and how approaches vary across regions — impacting data quality, trust and conversion.
The session then shifts into a live teardown, using audience-submitted examples (via QR code) to analyse real consent experiences in real time. Together, we'll break down what's working, what's creating friction, and how to design consent journeys that improve opt-in, enable better personalisation, and drive stronger commercial outcomes.
Main Track
3:00 pm - 3:40 pm
Panel Discussion: Scaling AI Agents Safely: Reducing Cost Without Increasing Complaints
Kim Phillips -
Head of Customer Operations and Tyro Health,
Tyro
Sara Valentina Talat - CEO & Co-founder, Briick
MD Kabir - Group Customer Experience Manager, Sutton Tools
Christopher Cramond - General Manager Member Strategy, Product & Experience, Aware Super
- Hardening escalation to address failed handoffs and lost context, reducing repeat contacts and dissatisfaction
- Improving accuracy to address confident wrong answers, protecting trust and reducing complaint risk
- Standardising knowledge to address fragmented policies and content, improving consistency and quality outcomes
- Optimising containment to address automation that stalls, increasing self-serve completion and lowering unit cost
- Operationalising monitoring to address drift and degradation, stabilising performance over time
3:40 pm - 4:20 pm
Panel Discussion: Embedding Generative AI Safely: Protecting Brand, Data and Trust
Tarnya McKenzie -
Chief Customer Officer,
City of Port Phillip
Arnaud Picard - Head of Customer, Prospend
Christopher Cramond - General Manager Member Strategy, Product & Experience, Aware Super
Su Jella - Board Member, Women's Tennis Foundation
- Stress-testing economics to address optimistic projections, improving ROI integrity and credibility
- Defining red lines to address trust and compliance exposure, protecting customers and brand outcomes
- Agreeing measures of success to address KPI sprawl, proving impact in cost-to-serve, retention and resolution speed
- Capturing next-step commitments to address post-event inertia, converting decisions into 90-day plans
- Ranking bets to address scattered roadmaps, concentrating investment on highest-return initiatives
