Transforming local government with a customer-centric strategy.
Client
Shire of Augusta Margaret River
Services
Design Strategy
Industry
Government & Public Sector
Year
2023
Impact
The Shire of Augusta Margaret River began their transformation from a traditional local government into a customer-centric organisation through their first ever formal Customer Experience (CX) Strategy – the Customer Experience Strategy 2023-2027.
This foundational strategy established clear pathways for continuous improvement by aligning community members’ needs with operational goals. The comprehensive creation of the strategy gathered over 4,000 data points from staff and community members, ensuring authentic community voice was integrated into the strategy while building internal awareness and engagement across all business units.
The Shire of Augusta Margaret River is a comparatively small local council when compared with sizeable local councils across Australia who have existing Customer Experience Strategies in place. The Shire created an initial three-year roadmap of achievable initiatives that sets the tone for greater initiatives in the near future.
Value
The Customer Experience Strategy represents the Shire’s first formal step toward becoming a mature, customer-centric organisation. Initially assessed at Stage 1 of the Qualtrics Maturity Assessment, the strategy lays a robust foundation to advance to Stage 2 by its completion. Its three-year implementation roadmap focuses on achievable, short-term wins that enhance community experience while fostering internal engagement, creating momentum for long-term transformation.
The strategy is designed under four themes:
- Build a customer centric culture
- Optimise processes, information and services
- Improve technology and systems
- Use customer feedback to drive improvements
The strategy delivers lasting organisational capability beyond operational improvements. It provides a blueprint for integrating a customer-centric approach across all functions and positions for future advancements such as CRM optimisation and thorough feedback systems.
Using a human-centred design (HCD) approach when developing a CX Strategy not only boosts stakeholder buy-in but also fosters strong cultural alignment and deep engagement. This collaborative process not only strengthens commitment to the strategy but also ensures a shared responsibility for its successful implementation.
Process
Our human-centred approach begins with deep discovery through stakeholder interviews, customer research and data analysis. We spent time understanding current realities and future aspirations followed by creating current and future state maps to articulate how things need to change and identify transformation goals. From there, we co-designed with internal teams and customers by running workshops, review sessions and other feedback mechanisms to shape direction and test ideas. Then, we prioritised quick wins alongside long-term initiatives to create a clear, actionable roadmap.
To ensure our work was robust, we developed insights after reviewing and synthesising data from a wide range of sources, including:
- Desktop review
- Executive Visioning Workshop
- Business unit employee interviews and workshops
- Community focus groups
- Community interviews
This comprehensive approach ensured the strategy would serve as both an immediate action plan and long-term transformation roadmap for an already engaged Shire.
Mindset
Our approach was guided by the principle that sustainable transformation requires authentic engagement rather than imposed change. Symplicit recognised that the Shire’s journey toward customer-centricity would be most successful when built on genuine understanding of both community needs and internal capabilities. By positioning ourselves as collaborative partners rather than external experts, we enabled the Shire to develop internal ownership of the strategy while benefiting from our expertise in Customer Experience best practices. This mindset ensured that the resulting strategy would be both ambitious in vision and practical in implementation, setting the foundation for long-term success in serving the vibrant Augusta Margaret River community.
