ice enhancements, learn how Officeworks keeps the voice of the customer at the heart of its operations. Inside Retail: How do you ensure the voice of the customer is integrated into strategic decision-making at Officeworks? Jessica Richmond: At Officeworks, we’re always thinking about how to better serve our customers and help them make bigger things happen. We know the rhythm of trading is constant, and with it comes a natural focus on financial and category performance but it is critical to remember that our customers are people, not just buyers. That’s why we work hard to surface customer data and insights regularly. This includes everything from verbatim feedback shared through customer interactions to quantitative insights from our NPS reporting, category and basket trends and monthly brand health metrics. It’s a powerful way to keep our customers at the heart of what we do. IR: Can you share an example where customer feedback directly influenced a significant initiative? JR: We’ve learnt that our customers truly value the flexibility of shopping with Officeworks across multiple channels – whether it’s in-store, via the Officeworks app, online, or through click-and-collect. Recognising an opportunity to enhance the click-and-collect experience, we introduced the ‘I’m on my way’ feature. This solution integrates customer communications with our store-management systems. When a customer lets us know they’re on their way to collect an order, the store is notified, and the order is moved to a front-of-store counter, ready for immediate pickup upon arrival. This simple, yet effective enhancement has streamlined the collection process, leading to a boost in our NPS and, most importantly, a happier customer base. IR: What systems or processes does Officeworks use to gather and prioritise customer insights/feedback? What role do store staff play in this? JR: Our NPS program is the cornerstone of how we gather direct customer feedback. We collect insights across every channel, including in-store, click-and-collect, our website, and delivery experiences. Using the Medallia platform, we’re able to report and share this feedback in real-time across both our support centre and stores. To ensure we act quickly on insights, our leadership team and senior leaders review and discuss NPS results weekly. This helps us identify and address issues and opportunities promptly, driving continuous improvement. IR: How do you collaborate with other departments, like product development or marketing, to ensure customer insights are acted upon? JR: One of our recent initiatives has been embedding a hub-and-spoke model, where analytics and insights team members partner closely with key areas of the business, including store operations, B2B, and merchandise. This approach enables us to deeply understand the unique challenges and opportunities across the business and ensures we can deliver the right customer insights to inform decision-making. Whether it’s about enhancing the customer experience, refining category strategies, or aligning with brand and channel preferences, this model helps us stay closely connected to the needs of our customers. IR: How do you plan to improve your understanding of the customer in 2025? JR: We want to encourage all our teams to remain curious about customers, and a lot of this is about how we can make the great insights and data we have available easier to access and digest. This is generally a combination of ensuring we’re delivering better and more timely insights and reporting when and where decisions are being made. Through providing better self-serve reporting, our team can more easily find the answers themselves. One thing we’ve recently implemented is a ‘Customer Night In’, where we invite several customers into our support office and have a chat with them about all things Officeworks – whether it’s about products, services or our brand and stores. This helps keep customers top of mind for both our teams and our business and reminds us about the importance of remaining curious and engaged with customers as we shape and evolve our customer offer. IR: Why is it important in today’s retail environment for the voice of the customer to be represented in the head office? JR: In today’s fast-paced and highly competitive environment, customers are setting the bar higher than ever. They’re not just comparing their retail experiences to other retailers – they’re holding us to the same standards they expect from other sectors. To meet and exceed these expectations, staying close to our customers is essential. By deeply understanding their evolving needs, we can adapt and refine our model to deliver experiences that truly resonate. This story first appeared in Inside Retail’s 2025 Australian Retail Outlook, powered by KPMG. You can download the full report here.