Michael Pratt is the first New South Wales Customer Service Commissioner in fact, the first such commissioner in Australia. Michael will use his experience in senior roles at Westpac, NAB, and Bank of New Zealand to oversee service reforms across the New South Wales public sector. In the banking sector, Michael has driven major improvement in the delivery of customer service across multiple channels. His appointment, and the subsequent establishment of Service NSW, has been part of a major effort by the New South Wales Government to streamline and modernise its approach to customer service.
There has been a lot of feedback from citizens on how governments are inefficient. “As a result, the New South Wales Government decided something really significant needed to change including getting a new mindset to focus on citizens as customers and to deliver real customer service. Now, the New South Wales Government is starting to interact with citizens in a very different way.”
“One of the key things the New South Wales Government identified was that the person in this role really had to understand not only what customer service looks like today, but how to manage the multitude of channels available to the customer now and into the future. Banks are really at the leading edge for customer interactions across channels.”
In creating Service NSW, Michael and the Service NSW team led by CEO Glenn King helped re-engineer many government transactions to create greater efficiencies for customers, including offering greater value, delivering significant cost benefits and synergies across the New South Wales Government. “We have 18 service centres around the state; half in regional areas and half city/metro. The Service NSW website was launched in July 2013. Service NSW also has a contact centre located in Parramatta.”