Strativity Group, a leading provider of customer experience services, today announced it has opened an office in Sydney to support growing interest from Australian and New Zealand organisations in adopting customer-centric approaches and proactively managing their customer experiences.

According to a recent Strativity Group Customer Experience Management (CEM) Benchmark Study, 48 percent of executives have increased investments in customer experience over the past three years by 10 percent or more. The study also showed a clear link between the investment in customer experience and improvements to attrition rates, referral rates, customer satisfaction and profitability.

"Many organisations in Australia and New Zealand acknowledge the benefits of orientating their business around customers and improving the quality and consistency of the experience they deliver," said Brad Meehan, managing director (ANZ) for Strativity Group. "Where they often struggle is trying to quantify the value that positive experiences create so they can optimise their investment in customer experience and develop a blueprint for improvement that can be implemented across their business consistently."

The 2010 Strativity Group Consumer Experience Study revealed that 73 percent of consumers would expand their purchases with a vendor by 10 percent or more if the customer experience were superior. According to Mr Meehan, "most executives know that positive customer experiences have a direct impact on their organisation's profitability. Our approach combines highly qualified and experienced consultants with a best practice approach, which we deliver in a way that supports rapid execution and drives measurable financial outcomes."

The opening of the new office in Sydney is the latest extension of Strativity Group's global reach, with offices also in the US, Canada and Europe. Its Australian and New Zealand focus is to work with progressive organisations to help them achieve a customer-centric approach and significantly improve the experience they deliver to their customers, particularly within the banking and finance, telecommunications and retail industries.

"Moving with clients into new markets, expanding our global reach and delivering tangible business results, has been the basis of Strativity Group's success over the past nine years," said Mr Meehan. "A local presence in Australia will allow us to build strategic relationships with leading organisations in the region. We are already working with a number of ASX 100 companies to design and implement customer-centric strategies."

Leading its Australian and New Zealand efforts, Brad Meehan has been developing and implementing customer-centric strategies for many years. He has consulted to some of Australia's largest companies and held senior roles such as head of customer strategy at Bank of Queensland. Brad has also completed Harvard Business School Leadership Programs in both Customer-Centric Strategy (2009) and Competitive Strategy (2010).