Ladbrokes Australia gets first GM of customer experience and innovation

Ladbrokes Australia has appointed its first general manager of customer experience and innovation as part of efforts to build brand advocacy in the local market.

The new role is being held by Christian Bowman, who joined the business in March as head of customer experience after spending eight months as head of marketing and digital for SmartClinics, a network of 10 family medical centres in Queensland.

Prior to this, Bowman was head of marketing and digital and chief digital officer at RSPCA Queensland, and he’s also held digital strategy roles at Bond University and Achaeus Group.

In his new role at Ladbrokes, Bowman reports to the chief operating officer and is tasked with helping the organisation ensure continued market growth by attracting and keeping customers who become brand advocates.

To do this, Bowman said the group is adopting a design-thinking approach towards utilising customer feedback to inform and evolve product and service delivery.

Priorities include introducing a voice-of-customer strategy, educating and mobilising the organisation on customer experience design methodologies, and developing an innovation process to enable competitive advantage.

“There is a natural relationship between customer experience design, particularly with closing feedback loops as part of the voice-of-customer program, with innovation, where invariably actioning feedback and solving problems at the source, informs change in product and service,” he told CMO.

“A lot of what interests me is solving customer problems and creating new and innovative products which matches closes with my experience with new ventures and developing new programs which change business process.”

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