Author: Mark Atterby

The contact centre market across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is entering a new operational phase. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), coupled with the expansion of hyperscalers and modern customer experience (CX) platforms, are accelerating a transition away from traditional telephony-first and interactive voice response (IVR) operating models. In their place, organisations are deploying AI-enabled platforms capable of managing increasingly complex customer interactions. Audrey William, Founder and Principal Analyst at CrayonIQ and Andrew Milroy, Chief Analyst for AI governance and cybersecurity research firm Veqtor8, co-authored a report recently, Risk, Governance and Data Sovereignty are at the centre of every AI…

As economic volatility pressures Australian households and digital technology reshapes how people shop, traditional loyalty models are facing unprecedented disruption. To unpack what this means for businesses, Mandy Gallie, Head of Sales for Asia Pacific (Vice President) of Customer Acquisition and Engagement at Mastercard, and Rachel Stinear, General Manager – Partnerships & Events at the Australian Loyalty Association (ALA), share their insights on building authentic trust, leveraging AI, and delivering immediate value. Rebuilding trust in an automated world Economic uncertainty and rapid technological change have eroded traditional consumer confidence. While brands aren’t universally losing trust, their relationships with consumers are…

As deepfakes, automated content generation, and algorithmic marketing continue to flood consumer feeds, executive leaders across Australia gathered at Crown Plaza in Surfers Paradise for the 2026 CMO Summit with one core priority on the agenda – Trust. Organised by Marcus Evans, the premier invitation-only forum, held on the 22nd and 23rd July,  brought together top marketing executives, including leadership from brands like David Jones, Baker’s Delight, and Seven Eleven, to address the challenges faced by modern marketing executives. The first session of the Summit was an interactive forum, Marketing Under the Microscope: Growth Engine or Cost Centre. Economic headwinds,…

In the past, mention AI to an executive, and they will likely picture a traditional rules-based chatbot or a standard text-completion copilot.The arrival of sophisticated, multi-modal AI frameworks and cognitive computing has shattered those old paradigms, shifting the conversation from simple automation to true operational autonomy. In an insightful industry interview, David Russell, General Manager, Enterprise Digital (Corporate) at Nexon Asia Pacific, recent winners of the Genesys ANZ Partners of the Year and the APAC Innovation of the Year, sat down with industry CXFocus editor, Mark Atterby to discuss why the market is moving rapidly toward Agentic AI, and why…

The traditional blueprint for retail’s golden quarter has officially shattered. For years, eCommerce and retail leaders relied on a predictable cadence, launch promotions early in Q4, cast a wide net with global campaigns, and watch average order values lift bottom-line revenue. Data from Contentsquare’s Peak Season Benchmark Report reveals that consumer behaviour has fundamentally evolved. Driven by economic calculation, hyper-compressed buying timelines, and a striking divergence in device utilisation, shoppers are no longer adhering to the traditional peak season script. For retail executives and digital teams the era of the one-size-fits-all holiday playbook is over. Survival in the upcoming peak…

Striking a balance between the continuous pressure for cost efficiency and the undeniable need for empathetic customer care is the defining challenge of 2026. Polling conducted at the Contact Centre Symposium 2026 in May revealed that while AI adoption is accelerating, the friction points are overwhelmingly human and operational rather than purely technological. The poll captured insights from a diverse cross-section of contact centre leaders across financial services, government, insurance, retail, utilities, non-profits, and professional services. While high-volume sectors like government and utilities face pressures around accessibility and community equity, highly regulated industries like banking and insurance must balance automation…

The enterprise contact centre market is undergoing its biggest structural shift in more than a decade, according to the newly released 2026 APAC Contact Centre CX Platforms with AI Buyers Guide from independent research and advisory firm, CrayonIQ. The report finds organisations are no longer simply selecting contact centre platforms. Instead, procurement is increasingly driven by broader decisions around AI strategy, cloud infrastructure, enterprise architecture, governance and data platforms. “Over the past twelve months we’ve seen the buying conversation change dramatically,” said Audrey William, Founder and Principal Analyst at CrayonIQ. “Organisations are asking fewer questions about contact centre features and…

Three decades ago, the contact centre industry was bound to physical facilities. In these bustling, centralised hubs, rows of agents sat side-by-side, handling simple, straightforward voice calls within rigid brick-and-mortar constraints.  Workforce management (WFM) was a rudimentary administrative task, largely limited to basic time-and-attendance tracking and simple shift allocations. The operational landscape was uncomplicated, as Audrey William, Industry Analyst and founder of Crayon IQ, notes, “Twenty-eight years ago, contact centres were strictly physical facilities. It was simple and basic—agents worked in a single building, took calls, and digital channels didn’t exist. Back then, workforce management was nothing more than basic…

Dashboards have long been the control tower for customer experience, helping teams see where customers drop off, which journeys convert, and which products or campaigns are performing. But they have one major limitation: they mostly show what has already happened.  Customers now move across touchpoints and channels in minutes. By the time a weekly report reaches the right team, a poor experience may already have become a churn risk. This is why customer analytics is shifting from retrospective reporting to proactive decision-making, powered by specialised AI agents. Specialised agents for specialised CX challenges Customer experience challenges are not interchangeable. Churn…

For global travel and hospitality brands, customer experience (CX) is a complex, multinational orchestration of journeys. At Our Vacation Centre—a prominent travel loyalty provider under the global Arrivia umbrella—managing these dynamics involves coordinating a highly distributed, multilingual footprint. In an industry vulnerable to sudden geopolitical shifts and changing consumer habits, the organisation has shifted its focus away from traditional agent staffing models. Instead, it is embracing an evolving, AI-driven digital transformation aimed at eliminating administrative friction and transitioning from transactional customer service to a premium concierge model. The organisation’s international operations span offices and contact centres across Australia, New Zealand,…