Disclaimer: The following is a personal interpretation of the conversations held at the Gartner Customer Experience & Technologies Summit. It may not accurately reflect the full views or intentions of the speakers. The personal views expressed may not align with the views of my employer.

This week I was been fortunate to attend the Gartner Customer Experience & Technologies Summit in Sydney. It’s been a powerful reminder that truly great customer experience (CX) doesn’t start with the customer. It starts inside the organisation.

The most compelling takeaway so far?

“The best organisations in CX turn their backs on consumers… and fix their internal issues first.”

It sounds counterintuitive, but it makes perfect sense. You can’t deliver seamless, satisfying, citizen-focused services if your own processes are fragmented, your systems don’t talk to each other or you’re unintentionally making your customer service teams jump through hoops.

Take Service NSW as an absolute standout case study. Instead of forcing citizens to navigate dozens of separate government agencies, they built one number, one website and one front door for the public. The result? A staggering 97% satisfaction rate. That doesn’t happen by accident, it happens through deliberate design, relentless internal alignment and a clear mandate to serve.

Design thinking in the public sector

Design thinking continues to be a huge influence across public and private sectors alike, and I’ve been reflecting on how it fits into our government context. The big message here:

If you haven’t failed at least once in your process, you’re not pushing hard enough.

That’s not a license to make reckless decisions. It’s a prompt to experiment, test and learn knowing that each misstep gives you valuable insight.

One of the most helpful frameworks shared at the summit was the concept that Design Thinking is Based on Six Mindsets:

• Empathy – Understand people before designing for them
• Show, Don’t Tell – Let your prototypes speak for themselves
• Experiment – Test ideas early and often
• Be Mindful of Process – Know where you are and what comes next
• Action-Oriented – Thought is good, but execution is better
• Collaboration – Diversity of thought is key to innovation

This mindset framework resonates deeply with my experience working in digital accessibility across government. In every project I’ve worked on, from web upgrades to major service reforms; bringing people with disabilities, CALD communities and intersectional perspectives into the room (and into the design process) has made our work stronger and more inclusive.

Closing thoughts

As we continue to embed digital transformation across government, it’s clear that customer experience isn’t just an output, it’s a discipline. It takes intentionality, empathy and a lot of internal legwork to get right. But when we do, the results speak for themselves.

Feeling energised by the insights at #GartnerCX and excited to bring some of these learnings back into my own work.