Improving Customer and Service Outcomes: Murrumbidgee Irrigation’s Strategic Approach

Client: Murrumbidgee Irrigation

Murrumbidgee Irrigation (MI) is one of Australia’s largest private irrigation companies, delivering essential water solutions that support a diverse and highly productive agricultural region.

MI services over 3,000 properties, owned by more than 2,300 shareholder customers, across 378,911 hectares in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (MIA). With a legacy spanning over a century, MI plays a critical role in sustaining Australia’s food and fibre production while ensuring the long-term viability of its water infrastructure.

Recognising the importance of meeting growers’ and stakeholders’ needs, MI continuously seeks to enhance customer experiences, streamline operations, and strengthen relationships with the agricultural community.

Challenge:

As part of its commitment to operational excellence, MI identified the opportunity to enhance customer interactions, service delivery, and internal alignment. To address this, MI set out to develop a Customer Experience (CX) Strategy with the following key objectives:

Assess the current state of CX across the organisation to establish a baseline.
Develop CX Guiding Principles that reflect customer needs and guide internal decision-making.
Design a three-year CX Roadmap to systematically enhance services and drive CX maturity.
Embed a sustainable CX change approach that aligns with MI’s corporate objectives and ensures continuous improvement.

By achieving these objectives, MI aims to improve service responsiveness, strengthen customer trust and satisfaction, and foster a culture of collaboration across teams.

Approach:

Change Playbook partnered with MI to co-design a CX strategy using a collaborative and insight-driven approach, ensuring its relevance and sustainability. This involved:

Stakeholder Engagement – Conducted in-depth interviews and discussions with employees across MI to identify strengths, challenges, and opportunities for improvement.
Customer Focus Groups – Facilitated sessions with a diverse range of customers to gather qualitative insights into expectations and experiences.
Customer Persona Development – Developed five data-informed personas representing MI’s key customer segments, helping to personalise service improvements and decision-making.
Service Blueprinting – Mapped key service interactions to identify inefficiencies and critical customer pain points, leading to actionable improvements.
CX Maturity Assessment – Evaluated MI’s CX capabilities across seven key domains, providing a data-backed foundation for CX improvements.
CX Guiding Principle Development – Synthesised insights into four core CX principles—Collaboration, Clarity, Responsiveness, and Ease—which will shape MI’s approach to service and decision-making.
Three-Year CX Roadmap – Designed a phased plan prioritising high-impact initiatives that will systematically increase CX maturity and operational excellence.

A 90-day planning framework was introduced, supporting CX initiatives to be implemented incrementally, allowing MI to test, learn, and adapt while maintaining business momentum.

Outcome:

Through this strategic approach, MI is positioned to enhance customer experience and service delivery by embedding CX as a core focus across the organisation. Key outcomes include:

A clear, actionable CX Strategy with a structured roadmap for continuous improvement, supporting a sustained focus on customer experience with measurable progress tracking and the flexibility to adapt over time.
Co-designed CX Guiding Principles that shape service delivery and decision-making, fostering a shared understanding of what great customer experience looks like across MI. This will help teams align their work with customer needs, strengthening trust and responsiveness.
Five customer personas that provide a deeper understanding of MI’s diverse customer base, helping teams tailor their approach and enhance customer interactions. These insights will guide service improvements and internal decision-making.
Service blueprints that map key customer and employee journeys, highlighting opportunities to improve efficiency, reduce service friction, and enhance internal collaboration. These blueprints will be a reference point for refining processes and supporting long-term CX maturity.

By embedding these strategies into MI’s operations, the organisation is well placed to strengthen customer relationships, refine service interactions, and continue evolving to meet the needs of growers and stakeholders.