El Jannah dishes Up AI-powered customer service

In the competitive world of Quick Service Restaurants (QSR), the ‘secret sauce’ isn’t always in the kitchen. For El Jannah, the iconic Australian charcoal chicken chain, it’s increasingly found in the cloud. Since launching its AI pilot in September 2025, El Jannah has transformed how it interacts with its community. By integrating Salesforce Agentforce into …

Beyond the hype – how AI is truly transforming CX in APAC

In 2026, AI-powered CX will  represent a fundamental shift toward agentic systems—intelligent entities capable of reasoning, maintaining long-term memory, and executing complex workflows autonomously. For businesses across Singapore, Australia, Japan, and beyond, the priority has moved from merely automating interactions to orchestrating outcomes that drive measurable loyalty and revenue. Major regional players, such as Singapore’s …

Mind the Gap – Why consumer perception is the new battleground for Australian SMBs

The Australian small and medium business (SMB) sector is entering 2026 facing a paradox. While business owners report high levels of confidence and gold-standard performance, their customers are signaling a different reality. According to the newly released Thryv 2025 Business Index and Consumer Report, a widening “Experience Gap” has emerged. For the modern entrepreneur, simply …

The shift to conversational CX – Interview with Sinch’s Angus Mansfied

The traditional “omnichannel” approach is being replaced by something far more dynamic: a living ecosystem of intelligent, two-way dialogues. As brands move away from simple automation toward sophisticated “digital labour,” the focus has shifted from mere efficiency to deep, trust-based customer connections. To explore how these trends are manifesting in the Australian market, Mark Atterby …

Digital labour – Are the robots really taking over customer support?

The customer support landscape is transitioning from basic automation into the era of digital labour. Within modern service ecosystems, agentic AI marks a significant advancement over previous generations of support tools by moving beyond static responses toward autonomous problem-solving. Digital labour encompasses productive activities facilitated by digital infrastructures, where work is coordinated.It can also describe …

Generative AI in customer service: From chatbots to autonomous agents

Since ChatGPT rose to prominence at the end 2022, CX technology vendors have been busy integrating the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Gen AI into their software platforms. The aim has been to deliver more human-like, personalised, and efficient interactions at scale. Over the years, chatbots have evolved through several distinct generations, moving …

IKEA’s quest to become customer obsessed

The journey toward genuine customer obsession requires more than just good intentions—it demands a robust, organisation-wide strategy for customer listening. In 2018 IKEA embarked on a VoC program aimed at building a single source of truth about its customers and the business.  IKEA’s need for its Voice of the Customer (VoC) program stemmed from its …