A recent report from Concentrix, the CX Divide: The Cost of Underinvestment – August 2025, establishes a clear and compelling link between Customer Experience (CX) capability and stronger financial performance, confirming that CX is a growth engine, not a cost centre. Organisations neglecting their CX capabilities are, quite literally, “leaving money on the table.”
Dhiraj Kumar, General Vice President of Growth, ANZ at Concentrix, advises, “The single most critical capability is end-to-end orchestration of the customer journey – not just better front-line service, but the ability to connect data, channels and decisions so an organisation consistently solves their customer’s problem at the right time. When you can route the interaction correctly, personalise the outcome and attribute it back to behaviour, you reduce churn, increase revenue and lower cost-to-serve. The precise mechanics that drive the revenue and profit delta that the report highlights”.
The report highlights the CX maturity of Australian and New Zealand organisations, revealing the following:
- Fewer than three in ten (28%) are CX Leaders
- Nearly one in two (46%) are CX Followers
- One in four (25%) are CX Laggards
“The average ANZ organisation is a CX Follower. This means most companies are actively on their CX journey but haven’t reached an advanced level. They are beyond the basics (Laggards) but are still a significant distance from achieving the advanced integration and future readiness of CX Leaders. They’re in the middle of the pack, which is a vulnerable position to be in”, says Kumar.
The financial proof
CX Leaders vs industry followers and laggards, are significantly more likely to report both revenue growth (84%) and profit growth (83%) in the past year. This is a stark contrast to CX Laggards: 46% revenue growth, 52% profit growth.
This performance differential should serve as a wake-up call, demonstrating that mature, well-executed CX strategies directly translate into superior financial outcomes.
Organisations striving for improved performance often hit a common operational wall, however, as Kumar points out, “ The most common blocker is over-centralised decision governance – rigid escalation rules, fragmented systems, and data gaps compounded by insufficient technology that force advisors into scripted workarounds. That gap between permission and purpose creates delay, inconsistent outcomes, and customer frustration”.
Removing unnecessary approval layers and giving advisors defined autonomy (with clear guardrails) goes a long way toward fixing this. Technology amplifies that empowerment by providing real-time visibility, intelligent guidance, and next-best-action recommendations that help advisors make confident, compliant decisions on the spot. When the right data and decision support are in their hands, delivering great customer experiences becomes the default, not the exception”.
The C-suite to front-line disconnect
Despite this overwhelming evidence, a critical problem persists: a disconnect between the C-Suite’s vision and the execution at the front line. While the C-Suite champions CX as a strategic priority – often seeing it as the key to market differentiation and growth – the necessary investment, cultural alignment, and operational empowerment may not consistently reach the employees who directly interact with customers.
- Visionary C-Suite: Sets ambitious goals, allocates budget, and recognises CX’s strategic value.
- Struggling Front Line: Often lacks the appropriate tools, training, autonomy, or integrated technology to deliver the intended experience. They are the daily face of the brand, yet roadblocks in policy, technology, or bureaucracy prevent them from seamlessly resolving issues and personalising interactions.
This gap transforms high-level strategy into frustrating, inconsistent customer interactions. To truly leverage CX as a growth engine, organisations must move beyond aspirational statements. They must focus on operationalising the CX vision by removing front-line friction and empowering their teams to be genuine customer advocates. Bridging this execution gap is the next frontier for CX Leaders.
Bridging the C-Suite and the front line
A disconnect between strategic vision and front-line execution is a common failure point. To ensure the C-Suite’s CX vision is clearly, consistently, and actionably understood by a front-line employee, the strategy must be simplified and embedded into daily workflow.
Shifting the perspective – CX as a growth engine
For organisations that still view CX as a cost centre, the key is to immediately introduce metrics that directly tie experience to financial outcomes. Kumar advises, “Start with revenue growth attribution: show the percentage of recent new revenue and customer retention linked to CX-led channels and initiatives (e.g., campaigns, experience improvements, upsell/cross sell conversions)”.
“Pair that with the cost-to-serve delta (before vs after automation/personalisation) and a projected Customer Lifetime Value uplift – shown as dollars per customer per year – and you convert CX from an expense line into a predictable driver of margin and growth. Our recent research shows materially higher growth rates for CX leaders – it makes the business case simple to close.”
The most compelling metric for the CFO
According to Kumar, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), expressed in present-value terms, is the most compelling non-traditional metric for the CFO. CLV ties acquisition, retention, cross-sell, and reduced cost-to-serve into a single financial number that can be benchmarked against Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and used for capital allocation decisions.When you can demonstrate increased CLV across cohorts after a CX uplift, the request for investment shifts from discretionary to strategic.
Empowering the front line to improve First Contact Resolution (FCR)
To delegate decision-making authority and improve FCR, organisations should implement a tiered authority model. Kumar says, “By using a tiered authority model, you can empower advisors with bounded decision rights for defined scenarios (refund caps, service recovery, routing) and provide an AI-enabled decision support layer – powered by agentic AI tools – that recommends actions based on previous similar interactions. Team Leaders retain oversight for exceptions, but the majority of cases are resolved at first contact – lowering repeat work and improving satisfaction.”
Converting Employee Feedback into Action
Closing the loop on employee feedback—the ‘Voice of the Employee’—is one of the quickest ways to fix CX gaps and lift engagement. This is institutionalised through structured capture, rapid triage, and a transparent follow-through process, often called a clear “You said, we did” approach. This ensures front-line insights influence everything from policy simplification to technology enhancements and targeted training, which strengthens execution and deepens their knowledge and engagement.
The stark difference in revenue and profit growth between CX Leaders and Followers is a clear sign that organisations neglecting their CX maturity are, quite literally, leaving money on the table. Organisations need to bridge the gap between C-suite vision and having an empowered front line.
The full 2025 ANZ CX Index is available at Concentrix ANZ.
