Problem Solving and Customer Experience Transformation in the Australian Postal System with CCO Christine Corbett

Overview

How do you transform customer experience within the postal service – an industry that affects the whole nation? In this episode, Christine Corbett, a hybrid CCO of Australia Post, shares how she’s using her background in operations and communications to unite the organization and reinvent the Australia Post customer and employee experience.

Solve Problems and Go Beyond Customer Expectations

A critical part of Christine’s role as CCO is to ask, “how do we make sure we can empower our front line to deliver great customer experiences?” To answer this question, start by understanding the customer experience journey, then develop products and services from there. Christine solves for how services and experiences can improve customers’ lives, and how the Australia Post can not only anticipate – but deliver and go further than customer expectations.

A big CX undertaking for Christine was a “Deliveries That Make you Smile” project. This internal project was birthed out of the knowledge that the delivery experience was a major pain point for customers. Customers would get frustrated when packages couldn’t be delivered if they weren’t home, and with the growth of online shopping, that was only a problem that would get bigger.

Christine and her team decided to reimagine what parcel delivery service could look like. They put together a small team and gave them 13 weeks to work on this transformation. From seeing how parcel was delivered, to listening on customer contact calls, speaking to postal staff and drivers – Christine and this cross-function team were able to better understand and decide priorities based on observation and customer feedback. 

Bind Your Team Together

Of course, with a transformation this big, it’s critical to unite the C-Suite and get executive buy-in. With support from the C-Suite, Christine added a finance team to the process. She explains that this was such an important part of the journey because the finance team helped them prove different solutions that would positively impact the bottom line.

With all of the various parts of CX transformation, you’ve got to focus on a big initiative that you can rally your whole team behind. Christine and her team assessed ideas based on the following customer priorities:

• Create a seamless customer experience, especially when it comes to parcel delivery.
• Listen to customers and take action. Learn how to leverage insights to make better decisions.
• KNOW your customers – gather as much data and contact information as possible to create a personalized experience.
• Develop a customer commitment statement to be placed in every post office, on the website, and back of employee identity cards.
• Empower people on the front line. Provide tools that allow your employees to be an advocate for the customer. They introduced an app, SnapIt, which offers support and sales tools for postal employees.
  • Additionally, the team developed “Toolbox talks” in which employees start the day with a meeting in which they share customer moments and stories of success, or stories where events didn’t turn out as well as they’d hoped.

What Do You Know NOW That You Wish You Knew THEN?

Christine says:

• Understand the importance of customer journeys from end to end, not just looking at it from a business perspective. Put the time and resources into properly mapping the journey out.
  Understand the importance of customer journeys from end to end, not just looking at it from a business perspective. Put the time and resources into properly mapping the journey out - says @cacorbett of @auspost #CX Share on X
• Realize that the CX process is hard. You need to have people who are credible and resilient to continue driving through. Once you start looking at customer pain points and issues, you need to make sure you have the right people on the team who aren’t defensive and are ready to tackle it.
  The CX process is hard. You need to have people who are credible and resilient to continue driving through - says @cacorbett of @auspost #CX Share on X
• Take bite-sized chunks to the CX approach because the customer’s expectations continue to rise and the journey never ends.
  Take bite-sized chunks to the CX approach because the customer's expectations continue to rise and the journey never ends. - says @cacorbett of @auspost #CX Share on X

And lastly, Christine has this to say: “If you’re on this journey, it might be hard, but goodness it’s worth it! It’s a wonderful journey to be a part of.”

About Christine Corbett

Christine is an accomplished and highly versatile business leader and Non-Executive Director, with extensive experience in delivering strong financial and people outcomes in the retail, eCommerce, consumer services and logistics sectors. As Group Chief Customer Officer of Australia Post, Christine is responsible for creating the experiences that customers love and advocating for customers across the enterprise.

Christine is accountable for all the key customer touch points including the largest retail network in the country with over 4,000 post offices, the customer contact centre, digital channels and over 10 million customer interactions each day. She is also responsible for brand, marketing, customer insights, community and corporate social responsibility teams as well as the consumer and small business segment.

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