Eight in ten leaders collect customer feedback. Two in ten can act.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, 15 September 2026. Most Australian and New Zealand businesses are collecting customer feedback they cannot act on, according to research from New Zealand customer experience practice Good CX with diagnostic partner Half Time Orange.

The Silence of the System finds that 82 per cent of senior leaders gather customer feedback, while 23 per cent have a clear process to act on it.

A further 59 per cent act inconsistently, and 18 per cent have no customer signal reaching them at all.

The gap widens with scale. Inconsistent action rises from 27 per cent in small firms to 55 per cent in firms of 51 or more staff.

Asked what stops them, 63 per cent of leaders cite time and competing priorities rather than belief. That makes the problem operational rather than attitudinal.

"The listening happens. But the closing does not. And it is not a lack of will," said Liz Pinfold Reed, founder of Good CX and the paper's lead author.

"The same feedback lands as useful or as a threat depending on the state the leadership team is in when it arrives. A mobilised team has less capacity to receive it. That capacity is measurable, and it is trainable."

AN EXPLANATION DRAWN FROM NEUROSCIENCE, NOT MANAGEMENT THEORY

The paper's argument departs from conventional customer experience research. It builds new organisational thinking on Stephen Porges PhD's Polyvagal Theory, the science of safety and threat. It also draws on Yale neuroscientist Amy Arnsten PhD's finding that stress hormones impair the prefrontal cortex.

Most workplaces, the paper argues, are locked in mobilisation, the sympathetic fight-or-flight state. In that state the brain region responsible for complex judgement is measurably compromised, and difficult customer information arrives as threat rather than as intelligence.

A leader's nervous system, the paper argues, sets the weather for everyone below them.

The finding carries a direct implication for spending on artificial intelligence. "A mobilised organisation with faster tools is simply mobilised at speed," the paper states. Adding processing power to a business that cannot digest what it already hears widens the gap rather than closing it.

THE SILENCE APPEARED INSIDE THE RESEARCH ITSELF

Partway through fieldwork the researchers found the phenomenon they were measuring inside their own instrument.

Leaders invited personally completed the anonymous diagnostic at 52 per cent. Those arriving independently through the website completed it at 43 per cent. Respondents hesitated at an optional email field despite guaranteed anonymity. The researchers redesigned the survey mid-sample in response.

"When 82 per cent gather and 23 per cent act, the listening is theatre," said Brenton Webber, founder of Half Time Orange. "The signal arrives, and the system has no idea what to do with it."

THE COST FALLS ON THE PEOPLE CLOSEST TO THE CUSTOMER

The research finds permission granted without preparation. While 51 per cent of leaders say their people are empowered to improve customer experience, only 23 per cent say those people have had any customer experience training.

Sponsorship shows the same shape. Larger firms report executive sponsorship at 61 per cent, while 13 per cent run a standing governance forum where customer decisions are owned.

Measurement is the weakest condition in the study, with 31 per cent of organisations not measuring customer experience at all.

The reward for getting it right is large. Forrester's 2025 research on brand and customer experience reports revenue growth of up to 3.5 times for firms that improve both together.

A DIAGNOSIS WITH A REMEDY ATTACHED

The paper sets out the Crossing Model™, which positions leadership as the keystone between employee and customer experience.

It sets out the AFAR Framework™, which takes the customer measures every business already uses and adds a second question to each one. Was the organisation in a state to earn it?

And it sets out six interventions, beginning with replacing executive sponsorship with named governance, and treating psychological safety as a measurable condition rather than a mood.

The Silence of the System is available without charge at goodcx.co.nz/research/silence-of-the-system

Good CX and Half Time Orange will use the findings as a benchmark. The next wave of the diagnostic, which remains open, expands its Australian focus to capture a fuller picture of the Australian market, and organisations that take part receive their own readiness report.

ABOUT GOOD CX

Good CX is an insight-first customer experience and leadership practice based in Auckland, New Zealand. It works on how organisations behave under pressure, and on the conditions that allow customer and employee experience transformation to land. Led by Liz Pinfold Reed. Good CX is a member of the Research Association of New Zealand. goodcx.co.nz

ABOUT HALF TIME ORANGE

Half Time Orange works at the diagnostic layer of customer experience, where customer ambition meets organisational reality. Its Orange Zest and Blood Orange diagnostics show leaders whether customer intent can travel through a business into ownership, decisions and follow-through. Led by Brenton Webber. halftimeorange.co.nz

METHODOLOGY

Half Time Orange's Orange Zest readiness diagnostic, completed by 123 senior leaders across Australia and New Zealand between April 2025 and March 2026, with a further 17 international respondents bringing the total study to 140. This paper reads the Australian and New Zealand findings only. The sample is self-selecting and should be read as patterns within an engaged population of leaders already thinking about customer experience, rather than as a national average. Figures are rounded. Base sizes vary by question, from n=61 to n=123. The diagnostic measures perceived conditions and operating signals. It does not directly measure commercial performance, customer outcomes or psychological safety. Contributing experts: Liz Pinfold Reed, Brenton Webber, Craig Manning, James Brosnahan and Anthony Prajogo.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT

Liz Pinfold Reed, founder, Good CX: media@goodcx.co.nz, +64 21 213 2796. Available for interview and comment.

Brenton Webber, founder, Half Time Orange: brenton@halftimeorange.co.nz

High-resolution photography, downloadable graphics and the full paper: goodcx.co.nz/research/silence-of-the-system/media